Chris' Austin, TX Owlcam 2014

[Dumpsterkitty]

"May 3 – Editorial – I’m fascinated to learn, from The Des Moines Register via USA Today, that a fellow who put a bald eagle cam’ on the ’net back in 2008 was responsible for starting the practice of putting nest cams on the Internet. I guess the eight years I’d been operating this cam’ (and some of you were watching it) before 2008 somehow don’t count, either due to a startling ignorance and/or ego on the part of Bob Anderson, or standard journalistic quality controls (roughly none) at The Des Moines Register.

(How many times have you read an article in any newspaper on a subject in which you are highly knowledgable and not found cringe-worthy mistakes? That's what I mean by “standard journalistic quality controls.� That being the case, it seems more likely that The Des Moines Register is to blame than Mr. Anderson, but who knows?)

Seriously, this isn’t a tough issue to to sort out: just talk to the person, V. Dziadosz, who created and has maintained the worldwide list of nest cams since 1998, or lookup that site on the Internet Archive (bearing in mind that the site was at a different location prior 2012), and the empty claim of hatching the idea of nest cams in 2008 falls apart."

Indeed. "Standard journalistic controls" I suspect. Bob Anderson is well respected and I'm certain more than aware of many other bird web cams like...oh, I don't know...us...for many, many years before 2008.

Like the probable misquote of Craig Koppie in Delaware the other day.

I guess it's all good in the end...more awareness of the birds and their websites. But it doesn't really take a whole lot of research to find out the truth.

PFFFT!

[dale]

Thanks, Ei, for posting that, I was about to.
pffffft indeed.

[dale]

May 3 – Owlet no. 4 left the nest at 3:42 AM (on the same night owlet no. 3 left the nest, just on a different side of midnight). Neither 3 nor 4 made the remarkable flights to the hackberry trees at the back of my yard that nos. 1 and 2 did. Instead, they headed off to the side, first into a crepe myrtle tree that abuts the nest box tree, and from there through two of my neighbor's trees (in the latter of which they spent the day to the consternation of many of the local songbirds). After sunset, their dual food begging from that tree made their location clear.

Owlets 1 and 2 remain, presumably, in the hackberries and adjoining trees, since those provide much better cover and far more scope for movement. (Also, every year's owlets end-up in those hackberries, probably for the aforementioned reasons.)

Owlet no. 4’s exit left no. 5 alone in the nest box. Rather than encouraging no. 5 to leave the nestbox, Mme. Owl seems to have gone to extra lengths to look after him/her in the nest, delivering a mouse that night, and visiting the nest box on three occasions during the day. (Which is probably the reason that the local songbirds were aware of the location of nos. 3 and 4; Mme. Owl was probably roosting with them in between her visits to the nest box. If so, her mate would have been roosting with nos. 1 and 2.)

owlet 5, 11 pm central time - ain't going nowhere

[Kris G.]

May 3 – Owlet no. 4 left the nest at 3:42 AM (on the same night owlet no. 3 left the nest, just on a different side of midnight). Neither 3 nor 4 made the remarkable flights to the hackberry trees at the back of my yard that nos. 1 and 2 did. Instead, they headed off to the side, first into a crepe myrtle tree that abuts the nest box tree, and from there through two of my neighbor's trees (in the latter of which they spent the day to the consternation of many of the local songbirds). After sunset, their dual food begging from that tree made their location clear.

Owlets 1 and 2 remain, presumably, in the hackberries and adjoining trees, since those provide much better cover and far more scope for movement. (Also, every year's owlets end-up in those hackberries, probably for the aforementioned reasons.)

Owlet no. 4’s exit left no. 5 alone in the nest box. Rather than encouraging no. 5 to leave the nestbox, Mme. Owl seems to have gone to extra lengths to look after him/her in the nest, delivering a mouse that night, and visiting the nest box on three occasions during the day. (Which is probably the reason that the local songbirds were aware of the location of nos. 3 and 4; Mme. Owl was probably roosting with them in between her visits to the nest box. If so, her mate would have been roosting with nos. 1 and 2.)

owlet 5, 11 pm central time - ain't going nowhere

He looks pretty proud to be King of the roost now! 

[dale]

owlet 5's day alone yesterday, according to the dailies, was mostly spent inspecting his own legs, with short breaks for climbing the walls and mugging for the cam

[dale]

just now, all alone

[patsy6]

Awww, he looks lonely.   

[dale]

he's still there, too.

Chris writes:

I'm all for owlet 5 waiting until it is good and ready to leave, but I'm beginning to wonder if it'll have cable installed instead.

[dale]

in reverse order:

Chris W. Johnson @ChrisOwlCam
A minimum of four owlets were visible in the far hackberry, all in a begging contest for food. I suspect all five are there.
14m

 Chris W. Johnson @ChrisOwlCam
Owlet 5 disappeared from the nest box tree while I was tweeting. Best guess is that it took no. 2’s direct path to the far hackberry.
28m

 Chris W. Johnson @ChrisOwlCam
Owlet 5 is in the nest box tree, and just went  ... Somewhere....
34m

 Chris W. Johnson @ChrisOwlCam
Owlet 5 is out.

[Bird Crazy]

they grow up so fast. Good luck little ones