Meet Les and Amy’s Owlets

Year 9

For the fourth year in a row, Les and Amy, have blessed the forest near my home with new hoots! This morning I met their owlet twins. There could still be a third youngster underneath Mom but I am betting the cold spring we are having this year may limit the family size by one. (As a reminder, Les or Poppa Owl is named after the Lester River … and Amy or Momma Owl is named after Amity Creek … no names for the owlets yet!).

Nest found on March 11th. Owlets first appeared on April 26th; however their presence has been obvious for some time under Mom.

Mom GHO and Owlets

Kids being Rambunctious! (video link for email subscribers)

Dangerous Fog

Year 9

The sun made a brief appearance a bit after sunrise yesterday morning. The brightening day revealed that danger had stalked the forest fog, and my local crow population was not pleased. During the damp semi darkness the male Great Horned Owl had obviously made a kill and delivered it to its mate on the nest. I heard the crow’s racket from my house even over the sound of the waterfall. I hiked over to the nest and I found Poppa Owl guarding the nest while Mom ate. In addition Mom GHO is obviously being bumped around by hungry owlets underneath her.

Poppa Great Horned Owl on Guard

Mom having Breakfast (video link for email subscribers)

400 Bird Species for 365 Days of Birds!

Background, Year 9

As I noted in today’s other post, it’s ugly outside (37F, heavy rain and sleet plus a thunderstorm. This weather does NOT encourage anyone to go birding. In short it is an excellent morning for doing stuff on my computer. One of my tasks was to update my photography index of species for this blog / website. While I am not a “list keeper” and do not submit many lists to eBird, and do not maintain a life’s list of sightings, I do know the number of bird species that I have taken a photograph and then posted it here.

This morning the number of bird species hit 400! While I had not kept track down in Tucson, once back up north I discovered I had achieved that epic number. Here are the three birds which put my number of species at 400. It was actually the “lowly house sparrow” which actually gave me number 400. I did not realize I had never taken the time to photograph this kind of sparrow … making me not a very good numbers guy / list enhancer!

Cinnamon Teal: 398

Green-Tailed Towhee: 399

House Sparrow: 400!