Rfalconcam Forum

. . . Preparing to Nest!

MONDAY, MARCH 5, 2012

A depression in my nest box's bedding material has suggested for several days that a female screech owl is planning on nesting there. Last night, I finally saw one of her visits, when (sure enough) her primary concern was moving the bedding material around to create a depression for the eggs that are on their way. This is normal pre-nesting behavior for a female screech owl, so it's a very good sign that my Owl Cam' will return this year . . .

more at:
http://chriswjohnson.blogspot.com/2012/03/owls-preparing-to-nest.html (http://chriswjohnson.blogspot.com/2012/03/owls-preparing-to-nest.html)

:yahoo:

Great stuff. There are 2 pairs of Schreech Owls at the park I frequent in Toronto. We have seen both pairs recently(friends have). We have all enjoyed seeing Screech Owls nest for the past 5 years! No cams,being a public park the cam would last about well Im going to give the teenaged kids from the highschool up the hill benefit of the doubt and say it would take till the first night to come rip it down and wreck it.

recent good ones

Chris has a GREAT innovation - for the calendar dates, as in previous years, he is offering selections of still shots, but much larger sets and with a slide show option - how wonderful.
http://gargravarr.cc.utexas.edu/owl/ (http://gargravarr.cc.utexas.edu/owl/)

you can just sit and watch a fast slideshow of 300+ of the best captures per day! yikes.
They've entered the Nosferatu the Vampyre stage

a few, of hundreds of good ones

how did he/she do that

WINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!

 :happy:

one per day for the 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th.

I love seeing these alien creatures Dale.   :coolphotos:  Thanks for posting these pictures Dale!

Congrats on your 1,000th post!   :wave:

some more aliens, Carol.
Scores and scores of tiny food deliveries, each one sparking chaos for a second or two, after which things revert to even more intensely bizarre posturing and snoozing.

this looks to me like something dead with a tail that the owlets tried to eat.
I caught the last frame showing it clearly. Opinions?

That long stiff tail & shiny skin makes me think armadillo, but they've much bigger than that.  No other clue.

sizewise, mouse. odd tail though.
I wonder if this is it again or a different deceased beast.

Interesting critters being dropped of with the owlettes.  Where is this nest box located?  I used to know, but now I forgot.  This is something that happens a lot with me lately.   :lol:  A very strange tail in that first picture.  These little owls are adorable and deranged at the same time.  You gotta love them.   :happy:

Austin, TX

The critter in the earlier pic today appears to be a baby 'dillo.

So I was probably right-just wasn't thinking baby  :(

you know, I saw that shape but armadillos are SO not on my map that I couldn't admit it.
where would one get a baby armadillo if one were, for example, a little nocturnal owl?

this, however, IS a mouse. And SOMEONE seems to be trying to make friends with it.

Here's lookin' at you, kid!

Mme. Owl is a really talented huntress...first an armadillo, now a nautilus!

Here are my favorites from a couple of days ago.
As you see, they're looking out, poking dead things, and VERY active.
The slideshows are terrific in showing the number of tiny food deliveries, the amount of screeching and the general nonstop chaos. Chris reports falling hard with a ladder. He's OK but he has had a really hard year trying to give the world more crazy owlet pictures.

hahahaha.
Here are the other 2 I had put aside to share:

I'm glad you've been keeping up with them-I haven't had as much time as I'd like to spend with them this year.

four -- these from Sunday.
the owlets are climbing up to the hole and looking out already.
I hope that Chris gets to put the owlet rail on the box and use the opportunity to take portraits of the owlets, as he has done in the past.

May 22, 5:43 PM – I’ll be taking down the nest box within the hour in order to install the owlet rail and photograph the owlets. Don’t worry about the temporary disappearance of the owlets, or any other odd things you may see.

It's a bit more than an hour...don't think they went down yet...

Box is down-owlets are out-

What's that noise?


Somethin' doesn't feel right here...


WHOA NELLIE!


If I don't look maybe it'll go away


OK-it was all a dream, right?


Nope, still there


What is this "Chris" of which you speak?


AAARRGH!

May 22, 8:19 PM – Everything is back to normal, although the owlets are currently lying around the floor of the box, resting after their big, fun, fascinating and scary adventure. (Sounds like anthropomorphism, I know, but I don’t think it is.) Fear not, they’ll be back to normal when the night’s food deliveries begin. And, of course, whenever they leave (and that could start tonight – when I brought the box down, one owlet climbed straight into the entryway and jump/flapped out to me) they have an “owlet rail” from which to plan that first big jump. Photos and video of their adventure will be available sometime tonight.

Ei - Thanks!!! I'm so glad you caught all that; I was out and couldn't watch. I love those frames, the big hands, the glimpse of outside. Can't wait for the annual "portraits."

YOW!!

May 22, 8:50 PM – The first owlet has left the nest, and, after a long pause on the owlet rail, made a perfect jump to a nearby tree limb. At least one of the parents was monitoring the situation the whole time. There was one bizarre aspect: while the owlet was on the rail, a starling landed on the rail next to it in order to investigate it, peck it – I couldn’t be sure (it was dark, so I was watching silhouettes). It then flew to the other side of the owlet, and was gone (good riddance). Cats are frickin’ everywhere, but the owlet is safe for now.

Thanks Dale and Ei for keeping us up to date on what is happening to the owlets.  Do hope they stay safe.

So, do you think they'll recognize each other out side the box?   :confused:

who knows...who knows what recognition means for aliens and zombies. This one doesn't even seem to recognize his own foot . . . and I can't even recognize some of that stuff in the other shot as owlets!!

Chris made an absolutely spectacular video of the owlets outside on a branch, when he took the box down to install the owlet rail for branching:

May 23, 1:09 PM – The four minute HD video (1080p) shot during the owlet family portrait shoot this afternoon is available for download. It's a hefty 1.39 GB, so it's not for everyone, but it must be for someone ... you know who you are. Enjoy.
http://gargravarr.cc.utexas.edu/owl/2012/20120522/video/2012%20Owlet%20Family%20Portrait%20Video.mp4 (http://gargravarr.cc.utexas.edu/owl/2012/20120522/video/2012%20Owlet%20Family%20Portrait%20Video.mp4)

there is a smaller download of the 4-minute video of the owlets, if anyone had trouble with the huge one.
http://gargravarr.cc.utexas.edu/owl/2012/20120522/video/2012%20Owlet%20Family%20Portrait%20Video%20720p.mp4 (http://gargravarr.cc.utexas.edu/owl/2012/20120522/video/2012%20Owlet%20Family%20Portrait%20Video%20720p.mp4)
The video is very, very worth watching. Lots of clacking, defensive ill-temperedness on the part of one owlet; clearly someone died and made him king of everything. The other three are sitting quietly and going about the business of calibrating their brand-new owl headsets.

Those Owls are precious!  Love the chatty one and all of their expressions.  Thanks!

The video was great fun!  Thanks for posting...

That is an awesome foursome!  The one, doing the vocalizations, was quite the spokesowlet!  I have to add that the sound track cleared my balcony of pigeons in 1 second flat, including the mother pigeon sitting on two eggs in the nestbox!  Never saw any of them move so fast before!   :hysterical:  Thanks for posting the video!

Annie in Toronto

oh, that's so funny!

check out this capture from this morning. I can't believe owlets play around with cameras like this too - I thought it was only drunk tourists who did that.

the camera image quality went south yesterday, but one owlet's out, Chris expects another to go this evening, and onwards. He's pretty sure the branched owlet is safe in a neighbor's tree, based on the adults' behavior.

Chris' video software or hardware died yesterday, so no more more new live images this season. The second owlet branched last evening and disappeared into the foliage. Two more to go. Chris says he will continue providing sets of photos for each day, to be found on the calendar on the cam's home page. There still ought to be some terrific still photos forthcoming, from the same outdoor session when he made the wonderful 4-minute video, which I highly recommend seeing (link in an earlier post) if you haven't. It's smashing.

One reminder, if you enjoy the owlets and care to send Chris a picture postcard from your locale, he seems to love getting them. As per his site,

Chris W. Johnson, P.O. Box 8446, Austin, TX 78713-8446, USA

Chris reports that owlet #3 branched this evening.

found this while going through my saved captures from the season.

Oh no!  Not the Geico guy!   :o

Owlet 4 is out and safe up in the leaves, Chris reports.

Chris posted:

Beginning the process of sifting the few interesting movies from the worthless mass of automatically recorded dreck, I offer a food delivery movie from April 3rd (MPEG-4, 30 MB), while incubation was still less than halfway complete.

http://gargravarr.cc.utexas.edu/owl/2012/20120403/owl-20120403-022742.mp4 (http://gargravarr.cc.utexas.edu/owl/2012/20120403/owl-20120403-022742.mp4)

May 29, 8:53 PM – I searched for owlets at dusk, catching sight of one silhouette, and at least three overlapping, but distinct, food begging calls. Regrettably, both from a photographic standpoint, and an “I don’t trust my owlets with other people” standpoint, they (or their parents) seem to have decided to camp in a tree very near one of the back corners of my yard, but, nonetheless, not in any on my property. So, unless they all decide to stand around at the end of the one branch I can see directly, I’ll have to settle for silhouettes, sounds, and the knowledge that all four of them are probably doing well.

I hope they all do well.  Love the sounds they make and the butt shot & her look -too funny!