Category: Birds

Owl Update

Timothy Price96 Comments
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Do I want to fly over to the bosque with Little Baby?

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.

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Nah. I really like this tree.
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Little Baby Owl is on the tree on the left edge of the photo. He’s very difficult to see.
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Hey Big Baby! Are you going to fly over here?
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Are you talking to me?
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I’m certainly not talking to the stupid paparazzo on the ditch bank below.
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Oh! I don’t know. I really like this tree.
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Or you’re a chicken! He he he!
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Can you see my “mad dogs” you little runt?
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Talk to the paw!

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.

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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.

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Isn’t it a little early for you to be out Paparazzo?

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.

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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.

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Big Baby Owl sympathizing as best she can over me having to deal with WP blockheads.

Dinnertime

Timothy Price61 Comments
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Owlet out of the nest in the morning

The owlets are starting to get out of the nest. Last night I was checked on the owls well after sunset. Daddy Owl was hooting way up at the top of a cottonwood above the owlets. Soon Mama Owl brought home the bacon in what looked like a gopher. She perched with Daddy Owl for a few minutes before she flew down and gave the owlets the gopher for dinner. The three-minute video below is edited down to two minutes forty-five seconds of owl video from Daddy Owl hooting to Big Baby Owl hopping back into the nest with dinner followed by 15 seconds of credits.

Being well past sunset, I could only see outlines of the owls with my bare eyes. I increased the exposure on the video by two stops which let me at least see when the edges of things looked sharp when I focused on the owls. I had to focus manually and hope for the best. Daddy and Mama Owl were backlit, so the increased exposure was able to get their details pretty well. Once Mama Owl flew down to the owlets, the background became dark. I didn’t increase the exposure further, because the picture probably would have become very pixilated in the darkness. As it is I got the video pretty well focused and you can see some details in the owlets in full-screen.

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Owlet out of the nest after sunset.

On the Water’s Edge

Timothy Price48 Comments

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A Cooper’s Hawk standing on the edge of the water in the clear ditch. I don’t know whether he was meditating, fishing, our thinking about taking a bath. After we spotted him, he looked like he was trying to decide whether to carry on with what he was doing or fly away. He finally few.

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Hello! Is Anobody in There?

Timothy Price62 Comments

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Is anyone at home?

Our power went out while we were working on our computers this afternoon. Laurie stood up, looked into the sunroom, and said: “There’s the Peacock!” I got up, looked and sure enough, the Peacock was standing on the landing looking through the sunroom door as if he wanted in. After taking a few photos, I opened the door and asked him if he wanted to come inside, but he decided he didn’t want to come inside and ran off. I followed him around the property, talked to him, and got a few photos. Our traipse through the grasses, irrigation ditches, over the shed and through some bamboo, along with our rather one-sided conversation, was interrupted by a gas company tech needing access to our gas meeter that is nestled under a large rosebush.

We both said, “the Peacock” when he was at the sunroom door because the cats woke me up at dawn scrambling over me and jumping off of me to look at the peacock as he walked by the bedroom window. I went out and got a couple of early morning photos of him before he disappeared into the thick underbrush along the south side of the property.

I don’t know who he belongs to. I called a neighbor who called people she knew who had peacocks in the past, but none of them have peacocks these days. Where he came from and how long he will stay is a mystery.

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A tell-tale tail

Hello World!

Timothy Price36 Comments

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We went out to check on the owls yesterday morning, and one of at least two, but I’m guessing there are three, owlets popped his head up and said “Hello World!” Thus we start another season of “Watching the Owlets Grow.”

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Sunset View

Mr. & Mrs. Owl

Timothy Price52 Comments

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Mr. & Mrs. Owl sitting in a cottonwood across from their nest.

We walked down to check on the mama owl who’s been sitting in her nest for a little over a month. She and the daddy owl where sitting in a cottonwood across the irrigation ditch from their nest. Mr. Owl would hoot at Mrs. Owl and then she would peep. After he flew, I walked around to the other side of Mrs. Owl, and I could see she had something in the talons of her her left foot, but I could not make out what it was. She finally flew over to the nest and then we could see she had a gopher for her little ones. I expect we’ll start seeing the owlets poking their fuzzy heads up over the edge of the nest to look out at all the people standing on the ditch bank gawking at them in a couple of weeks.

Below is a short video of Mr. Owl hooting at Mrs. with wind and a pesky chainsaw in the background.

 

You can click on the photos in the group below to see each image enlarged:

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Mrs. Owl in the nest with her ear tufts blowing in the wind.