By chance, I tuned to the owl nest box channel on my TV this morning around 1:20 AM, and noticed a screech owl's head in the entryway. The owl spent a long time there, staring at various things, then jumped onto the perch inside the box. From there the owl did a lot more staring at things, and finally hopped down to the floor of the box. There, the owl began shoving and kicking the bedding material toward the sides of the box, in order to create a depression in the middle. Once that was done, the owl returned to the entryway, and exited several minutes later. The whole visit probably lasted 20-30 minutes.
This screech owl was obviously a female making preparations for egg laying (creating that depression in the bedding is as close as screech owls come to nest building). So, I don't know when nesting will begin, but it looks very likely that there will be nesting in the box this year.
Stay tuned.
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What a wonderful piece of news! I will be going to the owl page daily to see when it goes live.
ReplyDeleteSorry we missed your visit tonight, but glad to hear of the preparations for laying of eggs. Looking forward to this year's events.
ReplyDeleteGreat news! I really missed these guys last year!
ReplyDeleteGreat news! Looking forward to your cam returning this year.
ReplyDeleteThe California Crew is esctatic to hear this news! Fingers crossed for screech nesting. We sure did miss it last year...
ReplyDeleteDERANGED SCREECH OWLETS!
ReplyDeleteYES!
Excellent! We hope to meet the new occupant soon, and welcome her to the neighborhood. (Yes, we do talk to the images on our monitor.)
ReplyDeletePoor Chris, you write about Macs, you write about your programming, you write about politics, you write about your photography and likely as not, you get 0 comments. But one post about owls and there are 5+ comments cheering you on :-)
ReplyDeleteHi Chris, I am so happy you are up and running. Will you please post the link to you owl page. I retired and somehow lost the link. Thank you for all the effort you put into the owl project a lot of people really enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteYes! I'm hoping you have owls nesting in your box this year!! I check in on your website but it's the owl activity that gets me to comment, why is that????
ReplyDeleteHooray! I really missed the owl cam last year. I just popped by today, 3/1, to see how things were looking for this year and was thrilled to find not one, but TWO updates.
ReplyDeleteThanks!!
I am so excited that we'll be having those cutie pies to watch again. This is GREAT! Thank you, Chris, for doing this....
ReplyDeleteSuzanne in Austin, Tx