Dubbing a New Site 9

Site 9.

The old site 9 had to be taken down, due to a move. It had the old record of screech owl occupancy of 12 days after installation. Its seems fitting that I am able to ‘replace’ site 9 with the box that beat that record. It took less than 3 days after installation to get a screech owl occupant. And even better, they are nesting and have owlets that are getting close to fledging. So here is a summary of the season so far. The reports below are from the owner, and provide a brief (selected) summary of this nesting season so far. anyway WELL DONE!

March 26
female only pops up 30 seconds here and there mostly down! Now she flies out- then the male and then she flies back in box 10 minutes or so later! This behavior started slowly by being down but now I,think we may have eggs in there

April 15th
what a site we just saw!
Female flew out and then the male flew over to the tree branch waiting for her to return with a big frog hanging out of his mouth! She flew back in her box 3 minutes later – she went down in the box and then he dropped off his catch! Was amazing to see this huge frog !
Fun

April 22
We may have owlettes – tonight we had a change of activity and I think that we may have babies- it is around 27 days of the same behavior- she flies out for and few minutes and the male comes to feed but tonight he was going in and out over and over and she flew out for 1 minute and then back – male back and forth and she flew out again 30 seconds! I don’t know how to know if there are babies

 

the pair from March 12th

Mom and 1 owlet from May 15th

Plus One

Site 1

This family has move on, but I did get a final tally of 4 owlets fledged. They seem to be doing well. As usual this family follows a very similar path through the trees as previous years so it allows for some nice family photos before they ‘disappear’.

One owlet in crab apple

with the mom

The rest of the family in a near by Yew.

This one has best expression of them all!

And 2 more snoozing

An alert Dad

Fledging Time

At Site 1.

Looks like 3 owlets fledged, most likely between 5/9 and 5/10. Traveling the same general path through the trees as they had previously when they had nested in the other box.
Three owlets in a yew, the typical early fledged roost.

Switched it Up

Site 1

The female here decided to nest elsewhere but it was in ‘his’ box. In all the years (since 2010) I have never seen the female in this box, but it seems last minute she decide to give it a try and nest here, I have a feeling its at least in part due to the failed nesting last year in the slot style box. But its nice to know all is well, as an owlet made an appearance this afternoon. No camera in this box, so we’ll have to wait to get a count. But fledging should be with-in a week.

Talk about blending in!