Summer is upon us.....

Being a birding community, it just seems so natural to have a Great Horned Owl family as neighbors.  We've been watching this pair since February and through May there has been a nightly gathering of birders from around the world hoping for a glimpse of Mama Owl feeding or tending to her owlets.  The first nestling came out of the nest cavity branching on May 12th and 9 days later I was lucky to capture on video, the father bringing a mouse, handing (well, beaking) it off to the Mama and she in turn fed it to the branching nestling.  We thought there must be another nestling that hadn't branched yet and sure enough, after this one fledged, the second nestling emerged for a nightly show for the birding public.  Locals as well as folks from Germany, Canada, Great Britain and states across our country gathered for the nightly show.   It was 9 days Being a birding community, it just seems so natural to have a Great Horned Owl family as neighbors.  We've been watching this pair since February and through May there has been a nightly gathering of birders from around the world hoping for a glimpse of Mama Owl feeding or tending to her owlets.  The first nestling came out of the nest cavity branching on May 12th and 9 days later I was lucky to capture on video, the father bringing a mouse, handing (well, beaking) it off to the Mama and she in turn fed it to the branching nestling.  We thought there must be another nestling that hadn't branched yet and sure enough, after the first one fledged, the second nestling emerged for a nightly show for the birding public.  Locals as well as folks from Germany, Canada, Great Britain and states across our country gathered for the nightly show.   On Saturday, it was 9 days since first peaking out of the nest cavity,  for nestling #2, & Sunday, Mama wasn't in her normal day perch where she kept an eye on the nest, so we figured owlet #2 had flown Saturday night and sure enough, as we looked for it, a mobbing by the annoying acorn woodpeckers alerted us to the adults and we soon spotted the newly fledged owlet #2 on a branch of a dead sycamore on the creeks edge, near the nest tree.  Since Mama has moved her day perch location, we doubt there is a third nestling, but we'll continue watching for a few more days just to make sure there isn't a third nestling waiting his time in the limelight.
to see the video, cut & paste this link:

https://youtu.be/njDe9Jk25Rk