If you can find one!
Owls are incredible to watch – if you can find one. I can’t. Great horned owls have natural-colored feathers and markings so they are well camouflaged while nesting during the day. Do you see it? Luckily, I have friends who can spot them and have the patience to wait and wait and wait while I search for it, setup my camera, and begin to take pictures.
This one was hard to find even when I knew about where it was. Using a 10 power telephoto lens helps. Here is a blow up of the center of the picture. Now we can see it.
Let the fun begin!
Owlets are especially interesting. In my last post we watched a barred owl feeding the owlets. The barred owlets in that post might be called “branchers.” At 5 or 6 weeks, the young owls are unlikely to be strong enough to “fledge” or fly away from the nest. Instead the young owlets move onto nearby branches, flexing and strengthening their wings as they hop and climb around. After a week or two, they will have gained enough strength to begin to fly – although it may be several more weeks before they fly well. Hence in my previous post the second owlet climbed up the tree until it was next to its sibling and waiting its turn to be fed.
Now, after having located the owl, study the two images carefully. Can you find the owlet? Do you see the hint of white down? The white fuzz just barely visible below manna’s warm belly? The fuzz is more visible in the image below.
This owlet is very young. During incubation, the mother owl never leaves the eggs alone. The male brings her food from his nightly hunts. Female owls develop an area on their bellies called a brood patch. This patch of almost bare skin has more blood vessels than other parts of the skin helping warm the eggs. When the owlets hatch they have only a thin coat of down so staying close to mother for a couple of weeks may help warm them until a thicker coat of down develops. Then, slowly over the next 5 to 10 weeks, the natural plumage of feathers develops. So the owlet, now poking its head up in the picture below, is very young.
After posing for the camera, the tired owlet withdraws to the warmth of his mother’s belly and she takes advantage of its nap to sleep herself.
More owlets, more fun!
Hiking along a trail, we came upon another pair of hikers looking up. They showed us this beautiful great horned owl. Another great horned owl – there should be another brood of owlets!
It didn’t take us long to spot the nest filled with this pair. Owls don’t build their nests. They take over the nests of other birds and do little or no remodeling. This might have been an osprey nest; there was an osprey in a nearby nest built closer to the ocean. In any case, these owlets have made themselves at home. They are perhaps 2 or 3 weeks older than the owlet we just met. Their thin down has been replaced with a second, heavier down called the mesoptile. Underneath we can see the beginnings of the mature feathers that will soon replace the down.
This pair of owlets doesn’t sit still. They are up, they are down, they look all around. Their piercing eyes show they are able to study the new world around them. They can also beg for food. Their calls have become stronger, louder, higher in pitch. They can’t hoot, but their parents know they’re hungry!
And now, like their mother, they now sleep standing up. No wonder she’s moved to a nearby branch to get some sleep!
A note of owl trivia …
Owls have excellent vision. But their eyes can’t rotate in their sockets: they have to turn their heads to see around them. Their necks are constructed so they can rotate their heads more than 180 degrees. It’s great fun to watch ! I can’t resist adding these photographs of burrowing owls
As I said – Owls and owlets are great fun!