
Big Baby Owl has been in a cottonwood tree between the irrigation ditch and the clearwater ditch for over a week now. Little Baby Owl flew over both ditches into a tree on the edge of the bosque next to Holly’s Tangle Heart Tree. I expected Big Baby to fly over to be with Little Baby last night, but she didn’t. She seems happy in the tree she’s in at the moment.









Right after sundown, Mama Owl and Daddy Owl flew up into a tree just north of the owlets. They were perched like they were posing for portraits. Mama is behind Daddy.
I went out at 6:00 am this morning to see if Big Baby Owl had flown over to the bosque with Little Baby Owl. I found Mama Owl perched next to Little Baby and Big Baby Owl nowhere to be found.

Below is an aerial photo showing where the nest is and where the owls were last night. The owlets are still in the trees indicated on the aerial photo.
The blockheads at Word Press have introduced a block editor. I was stupid enough to try it. After an hour of attempting to put the post together, I could not get it to come out right at all. I finally trashed it and started from scratch in the standard editor, which took only 15 minutes to complete. I was so disgusted I walked out and talked to Big Baby Owl who is still in her favorite tree before I came back and redid the post. Blocks are for desktop publishing not browsers. If the block editor becomes the default editor, I’ll consider leaving Word Press again.

Beautiful birds.
Thanks, Harken.
You are welcome
Wonderful saga of the owls. My husband has advised me against using the block editor, and I am glad I followed his advice. Hope WordPress doesn’t insist as I really love the WordPress community.
Thanks, Laurie. I don’t know what WP is up to. The block editor is a nightmare in its current state.
So I’ve heard! Just got a notice that come June 1, everyone will be switched to the block editor. Looks like I’ll have ample chance to experience the nightmare firsthand. 😉
You should get on the chat and complain. It might help.
Everything is so darling Timothy. The pictures are beautiful and thank you so much for the update.
I believe the cottonwood tree is mine and the pear is Marina’s 🙂
Sending hugs to everyone.
Thanks, Gabriela. Those cottonwoods the owls are in belong to the owls. I’ll have to post an aerial one of these days that shows where everyone’s trees are in relation to each other.
My pleasure Timothy and thank you so much. Looking forward to the aerial map 🙂
Pure awesomeness! My owls are much shyer.
Tim, looks as if the owls have become part of your family. Out there talking to them and all that. They even pose for you. How neat is that? Have a great weekend coming up. 📚🎶 Christine
Hi Christine. I always talk to the owls and beavers and other critters. I think it helps for them to recogonize my voice. In years past, some of the owls would fly in and perch in where we could see them when I called them.
I thought so. You are their recognized good guy, just taking photos & having frequent chats with them. The owls know that.🦉🎶
What a pictorial post, Sir. Captivating, interesting, and to the point with the new block editor.
(I fear they may impose it on us, then I’ll be gone.)
If you can struggle with it, I’m so glad I didn’t try it, Tim.
If I could only do shots like these, tsk! No chance. Hehe!
TTFNski.
Thanks, Inchcock. I just had a chat session with WP. They plan on forcing the block editor, but the chatter did reveal that the classic editor will be accessible through the admin side of our sites. I also asked them to make it so we can turn off those pesky popups when you mouse over the Likes in the Reader. I find the popups super annoying.
Oh, the idea of being able to turn the new editor off, is marvellous, Tim, thanks.
I may be bothering you later, to guide me through how to do it. The brain is not taking in anything new, lately. Sad innit?
Fingers crossed, I just might be able to do it. At the moment I want to change the template, but can I remember how to do it? No! I’ll try to find time to have another try today. A nice clear layout, not complicated. Can you reccommend one to use form the options, Tim? Sorry to bother you, mate.
If you have the block editor enabled, when you start a post, there’s an option down in the right-hand menu you can selectr to use the classic editor. It will aske you if you want to stay on the page or leave the page. You will have to leave the page to see the classic editor.
I’ll have a look, Sir. Thanks.
A wonderful post about the wols and their babies 🙂
A wonderful post about the owls and their babies 🙂
Thanks, Harry.
Amazing, how the photographs were put together like a story board and so cute!
I fear the unpleasant and still unperfect Gutenberg and hope to find the back door to the old Dashboard later still, but if it comes to no other way, I am not willing to let him win the digital arm wrestling! I tried blogspot / blogger twice and did not like it that much.
Thanks, Puzzlsblume. The WP powers that be say there’s a back door, but tried to assure me how great their block editor is. Blockheads.
I gave up trying to edit the lay out and structure of my blog. WP says it’s all so easy but I’m always getting in trouble. I’m leaving it the way it is and try not to get mad.
Great post about the owl family, Tim. I wish there was a family in my neighbourhood.
Hi Herman. That’s one way to do it. They need to give choices on editors simple if you want, and more complex if that what you think you need. Forcing everyone on the a non-funtional editor is stupid. It would be nice for you to have an owl family.
A lot of complaints about the block editor today. Can you add plugins to your WP installation?
Hi Couriers. Some plugins. But it’s limited.
We use a plugin called Classic editor — but we’re on wordpress.org, not .com and have freedoms.
There is a basic classic editor in the Admin section.
Does it work?
Yes. It’s very basic, but that’s fine with me.
I bet Big Baby Owl would probably tell you: “Ah, you humans like to complicate life!”. Haven’t tried it yet, but I’m taking your word for it! Meantime, Owl life just beautiful to follow! 🙂
Thanks, Marina. You are right. We do complicate things compared to the owls.
😉 There’s a reason they’re called wise! 😉
What a huge amount of detective work you have done, Tim, in order to find all the areas these owls are. Your pictures are fantastic! Incredible how how captured what you did. Impressive!!
Thanks, Amy Rose. I know the area really well.
You would have to. (smile)
I am so in awe of the fact you can “sidle up” to this owl family! The pictures are stunning, the fact you can give us an aerial view of where they are hanging out is fantastic. And I love the whole “discussion” between Big Baby and Little Baby…
Wonderful all round!
Oh! And I have heard nothing good about the block editor. I sincerely hope they never force any of us to use it. And the ones who do use it,, drive me nuts, quite frankly. They add all sorts of colours, you have trouble reading what’s inside each block, it makes for a very messy and busy post… Blech.
Hi Dale. I had a chat with a not so helpful support person who said they plan on making the block editor the default editor. They are very proud of it from what I gathered. According the the support person, we ludites will come to appreciate their brilliance.
Nooooooooooo!
The few I know who have adopted it, and not with the stupid colourful, can’t read the text properly, are doing an okay job but they had a difficult time figuring it out. Ugh.
No. No. No….
It changed the sizes of my photos so they were all different sizes in the preview. Text and photos that were set to be centered were not centered, and text that was left-justified was centered. When I chose a paragraph block, there was no paragraph in the preview. The paragraph ran on from what was supposed to be the label for the photo. The post looked ok in edit mode, but in preview the post was a complete mess. I had to trash it, go back to the classic editor, and rebuild the post.
That is so depressing to read, Tim.
Bloody hell.
I can tell which bloggers use the block form and I find their posts lack punch… This is not good for creativity.
There is no reason WP needs to force people to use one editor other than arrogance. We should have various editors to choose from.
I agree wholeheartedly.
They will lose a few, if they insist.
Thanks, Marina. We are really lucky Mama and Daddy owls let us watch their little ones grow up. They are really a blessing that they are so patient, let us gawk at them, and don’t attack us.
Marina? Oh wait… I went to check the thread…
You really are lucky they allow you!
Sorry, Dale. I’m getting you all mixed up. It’s early.
Hey, there are way worse peeps to be mixed up with 😉
Wonderful pictures !
Thanks, Inge.
Fantastic pictures, really so remarkable! I’m off to share them. 🙂 Have a wonderful weekend!!!
Thanks, Julie. Have a nice holiday weekend.
It seems that the original wp-admin editor is staying. That’s what I use. I am not happy that I have to have a page of adverts as my ‘home’, or be tempted to watch something that always starts on 3 minutes, but I should not add fuel to the flames.
That’s one big baby! Wonderful to see the family and their living arrangements.
Hi Susan. That’s what the support tech said.
These are outstanding owl photos, Tim! I love Little Baby Owl with open beak. 🙂
Thanks, Lavinia.
Ah, this is awesome! I think they are enjoying the Paparazzi, look how proudly posed Mama and Papa Owl are. It’s hard keeping up with them now , right Paparazzi? They are really spreading out. What a great place they lucked into to set up housekeeping! Beautiful trees, and surroundings ( a tangle heart tree, woot!) so perfect and a very persistent stalker( lucky for us) .
Thanks, Holly. They are working their way into the bosque and independence.
I’ve never had any information not to mention photo’s of the development of juvenile owls. I can’t tell you how exciting and interesting this is. They are so beautiful and now I know why they are referred to as wise! Thanks Timothy.
Wise young owls! I’m happy you can watch them grow up with us.
Me too, it’s a very special treat to put it mildly!
Fantastic, I love getting updates (and photos) on the owls! Sorry for the WP frustrations, a feeling I know well, always best to walk away and come back, start over again.
Thanks, Tiffany.
wow so adorable…I love never seen so many owls…what a gift Timothy ~ smiles Hedy ☺️
Thanks, Hedy. We have a lot of owls out here. There’s a nest about every mile or so along the valley.
Like the “satellite view” (really the drone view) of your owl habitat. 🙂
Thanks, David.
Not a sign of them along the ditch today except for two hoots, deep in the woods by the river.
Hi Susan. They get up under the leaves during the day and are impossible to see.
Lovely, lovely, lovely Tim. They are gorgeous.
Thanks, Gloria.
Great update!
Hilarious and informative. That Tangle-Heart shadow is awesome.
I know how you feel about the blockhead editor!
I hate it!!!!!
It’s been around for awhile…. at least 2-3 years. They keep trying to get people to use it, but many, like us, HATE IT!!!!
As long as lots of bloggers keep using the classic editor, it will remain. After all, they stand to lose income if we leave.
Isn’t it cool how the Tangle Heart trees shadow is the same? Aparently, the classic editor will always be avaiable from the Admin area. But they’ve been know to lie.
I don’t think I could be happy with the Blockhead editor.
It’s just doesn’t work well. As I said blocks are for desktop publishing not browsers. Trying to force a browser to act like a desktop publisher is foolish. We gave up on it years ago.
The Tangle-Heart shadow is magic!!!
I love the captions you gave…. When I saw these pictures, I thought about the funny owl in the disney movie “Winnie, the pooh…”
These owls are funny when they play together. Thanks, Nabeela.
Ha ha…. They do…. Good to know that….
Last night the Big Baby Owl finally flew over the bosque where Little Baby Owl has been for the past three days. Before that, Big Baby Owl had been in a tree between the ditches for almost two weeks. Little Baby was in the tree where the nest is during that time until it flew over to the bosque. Last night after being reunited they were wretling, grooming each other, nipping at each other, and acting very happy to be back together. It was really fun to watch.
Thats a great scene…. You are lucky to be part of it….
We feel very lucky to be part of it.
Love your owl photos! We had a similar experience two years ago – triplet owls and the nest was in a tree that we could see from our front door. We followed their progress from branching to first flight. Once they had left the nest tree for good, the three mostly stayed together. Once they could fly well, they moved to the back yard, often sitting on the ridge pole of the swing set. Some evenings the parents would hunt and feed the owlets where we could see them.
I tried the block editor for the first time last week. Not fun, but was eventually pleased with the ability to use columns, etc. The effort was quite useless, however, because many of my readers use a feed reader to read posts. All the special block formatting is stripped out.
Apparently the ‘old editor’ that is going to disappear is the first editor they built. The newer ‘Classic Editor’ will remain for the time being. I work exclusively from the WordPress.com Dashboard, not their updated set of pages. The Classic Editor is the default editor in this view – for me, anyway. Hope this doesn’t change when they do whatever they are going to do on June 1.
I’ve been blogging for 10 years with WordPress and the consistent thing about them is that they introduce things before they actually work right… and once they work right, they introduce a new version that won’t work very well for quite a while.
HI Margy. That was great you had your own private owls. They are so much fun. If I have it right, under the Admin section, Posts when you select Add New next to Posts in the up upper left had corner of the page, you will always get the classic editor. I’ve been with WP for 10 years also. The problem is they introduce a lot of unnecessary, extremely annoying features. I loved the first “WP Classic Theme” I used. It was simple and my photos showed up much larger in the posts. They took that one away. I don’t think my current theme is readily available now, but at least I haven’t been forced off of it like the first theme I had. It will only be a matter of time.
What a treat! You are so lucky Tim! Love the shot of Mum and the youngster. And I think they just might enjoy your attention 😉 sorry to hear about the new WP editor .. I’m even more nervous now!
Hi Julie. They’ve been really active that last few nights flapping their wings and flying between branches in the tree tops.
You can get the basic editor from your Admin pages under Post if the block editor gives you too much trouble.
Thanks Tim .. 👏
Great owl photos. Thanks for sharing
Thanks, Coach.
All the pictures of the owls and their little one are precious. I love the pictures of your trees, especially the “Tangled Heart Tree” a masterful gift of nature. The video of the baby and the stink bug is so precious and hilarious all at the same time. Love to you both, Joni
Thanks, Joni. The stink bug was a real shock for the owlet.
[…] Owl Update […]
I love these photographs Tim they are magnificent. My favorite is the grey and white owl photo, how unbelievably camouflaged he is in that tree. I love how you get solace from your friends and how you converse with them. Nature is just such an incredible blessing. You and your sweetheart have an amazing evening together under those gorgeous trees. Love to you both ❤️💕Joni
The owls really blend into the cottonwoods. We often hear them but can’t find them in the leaves. Thanks, Joni.