Anyway, it was hard to narrow down the photos, so here are a bunch of them! According to my book, these guys are 50something days old now.
Monday, July 11, 2011
the barn owls fledged!
I was so surprised to walk into the barn this morning, look up, and see three heart-shaped faces peering down at me. Goodness, the owl babies were out of the box! Somehow I was expecting them to leave the box one at a time. I know that when I looked inside the box there were 4 babies. At first I thought maybe the youngest was still in the box. Could be, but more likely I think one had already left the barn by the time I saw them this morning. I'm glad I took some photos when I did because by late afternoon all three had flown out of the barn to parts unknown. One out over the pasture, one to the trees along the creek, and one was behind some boards in the wood shed last time I saw it. It's not stuck, and it was making threat postures at me, so I left it alone but will check tomorrow to see that it has come out of there.
Anyway, it was hard to narrow down the photos, so here are a bunch of them! According to my book, these guys are 50something days old now.
Anyway, it was hard to narrow down the photos, so here are a bunch of them! According to my book, these guys are 50something days old now.
I am so torn between the beauty of these guys and the threat they pose to my chickens. Your photographs are amazing.
ReplyDeleteI love the photo of the one that is sideways. Owls always make me laugh when they are young. To top it off, they have heart shaped faces which makes me giggle even more when they do silly things! What a wonderful surprise this morning! -BMc.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I got to see them, too. I'm surprised they flew off so quickly, but it's always amazing to me how quickly young birds learn that flying stuff. Over here the barn owls stay in a family unit for quite a while. They prefer a tree that's right over the highway, you can tell by the owl poo on the blacktop below it. I'm sure they hit a lot of cars, which pleases me no end.
ReplyDeleteI think ideally they would have stayed longer. But by the time I had to do some stuff out there a few hours after you were here, they were a lot more antsy about my presence. I was quiet, but I can't avoid the barn altogether... I heard lots of barn owl sounds last night, and as of yesterday evening two were still near the barn (in the shed and along the creek) so hopefully they're all still being taken care of. They were extremely clumsy, and two ended up falling on the floor of the barn before they took off. Flying good, landing not so good!
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