Thanks, Paul. Although 17 milliseconds is a bit much for me to imagine...yikes.

One of the most astounding things one can see is a tight formation of flying birds. Pigeons, of course, practice in the city on a regular basis; at some points of a turn they all disappear into dots, then finish the curve and get reconstituted into pigeons.

I think the last owlet has left the building!

nope. his or her front (i.e., eating and looking) end leaves the building from time to time, but apparently this whole "leaving" business needs a lot more thought.

Thanks for both of those, Joyce!! Seneca IS pretty funny with that branch. I guess if plummeting to the ground isn't a problem, you can afford to do stuff like that.
And the eyas photos are terrific!

I was still trying to get over what owlet #2 was doing with its head in the previous post's picture, and now THIS ... careful study of the first of these photos leads me to suspect that the bird has its head turned around 180 degrees.  Am I right?   
Careful study of the other photo leads me to believe that a large fish is trying to enter the nestbox.

just pure silliness, unless it's an attempt at chin-ups, in which case it's just pure silliness.

"...Chris says it's hard to tell girl owls from boy owls...boy is he right!"

Oh really? 

the new O RLY owl:

and then the OBVIOUS solution...

Yup. This time I was right.
Chris writes:

May 20 – [8:53 PM] Owlet no. 1 has left the nest and is safely perched in the nest box tree. He/she flew from the rail to a nearby tree limb with no difficulty.

[9:48 PM] As soon as I finished writing the previous entry, I went outside with a powerful hand-held light and my camera to try to get a photo of owlet no. 1, but he/she was nowhere to be seen. Both adults were present - they moved around the yard keeping a constant watch on me, and they protested verbally when I walked under certain areas of the canopy of the two big hackberry trees at the back of my yard. That suggests that owlet no. 1 flew from the nest box tree to one of the hackberrys, a flight of something like 25 feet, if he flew between their closest branches. If so, that’s good; the dead nest box tree can’t provide much shelter, while the large, vibrant hackberrys can provide no end of places to hide.

At this age, a screech owl should be a very poor flier, but I saw this one easily gain altitude on both of her/his first two flights, so, perhaps, being one of only two owlets meant that he/she was fed so well that he/she developed more rapidly than the typical eastern screechlet, who would be competing with three siblings.

So, all indications are that things are going great for owlet no. 1. Next we’ll see how long owlet no. 2 (≅3 days younger than no. 1) remains in the nest.

??

and a totally WILD set of photos of Cheyenne escorting a young eagle out of the area.

Two clips of Archer trying to figure out what to do with the eyases

HAHAHAHA!!! That is ONE flummoxed falcon father!
Thanks, Shaky!

I have this sneaking suspicion about how #1 gets up there every evening...

each conspiratorial wink could be the last of the year...

[WHAT FUN !]

Taste buds . . ..  outside the body . . ..   WHAT FUN !

I'd like to have had my taste buds in the White House kitchen yesterday. What Rick Bayless cooked for the state dinner sounds amazing!  Unfortunately, no one's asking. I think to have taste buds outside your body you need to have them on a catfish's skin. Bummer.