I Found an Owl's Nest

[mewickham]

I found something cool-- an owl's nest. It is within easy sight of one of my favorite walking paths. I took a picture of it with my crappy point-and-shoot camera, but it was too far away to get a clear shot. I can see just enough detail to see that it is probably a long-eared owl. (That was already my guess based on the long-eared silouhette.) I look forward to taking my good Nikon, tripod, and 1000 mm lens on my next trek to see if I can get a decent photo.

Now if I can only find the nesting site of the barred owls in my neighborhood. We can hear them hooting all over the place at certain times of year.

[etheonut]

You should go look under the nest site and see if you can find some pellets. They are very interesting to dissect.

Kevin

[pinkrblu]

That reminds me! I told Mattie last night that we would look for owl pellets this afternoon. We have an owl in one of our trees about 3 nights a week.

[sskruzr]

Can't you make coffee with them? Mike, give it a shot.

[Jackielee]

Finding an owl nest is cool. Corey if I ever find any pellets you can have the coffee, yuck!

[mewickham]

I got a better photo today. It's definitely a long-eared owl (Asio otus).

Click for larger image:

[Jackielee]

Beautiful!

[pinkrblu]

Cool! I would be tempted to sit and watch for a while. Congrats on the photo.

[mewickham]

I'm officially bummed out. I've been watching the owl's nest a couple of times a week, hoping to see chicks. Last week, I didn't make it down there, due to cold weather and rain. Today, I went by, but couldn't see mama owl sitting on the nest. I took a couple of shots of the nest anyway, hoping that when I blew them up, I might see the fuzzy tops of some chick heads showing.

Instead, the photos showed that the whole top half of the nest was gone! I'm not surprised. I thought the nest was built in a precarious spot. It's on the side of a leaning tree, held in place at the bottom only by a tangle of vines. I worried that a rainstorm or high winds might take it out and we had both last week. Plus, believe it or not, the city came in within the last week, built a concrete pad, and placed a park bench on it next to the path--just 10 yards from the nest! Construction noise may have disturbed things. The nest was clearly visible. I hope some idiot didn't pelt the nest with rocks to knock it down.

Anyway, after seeing the photos, I drove back down and looked on the ground under the nest, just in case there were eggs or chicks in need of help. I found nothing but nest bits and owl pellets. I was probably lucky to find those. The nest is right over a dry stream, which is wet now and may have been running after the rains.

Oh well. It was fun while it lasted. Maybe mama will rebuild somewhere I can see or come back next year. On the plus side, a pair of hawks flew right by me, screeching, and one carrying a mouse. The wind was at such a speed that as the hawk came adjacent to me, it seemed to stand still for a bit. Too bad my camera was still in the backpack! It probably wouldn't have mattered, though, because I had the 1000 mm lens on it and you pretty much need a tripod to get a decent shot with that thing. I'm keeping my eye out for a hawks nest.

[pinkrblu]

Sorry to hear about that. Our owl hasn't been here for the past week or so, and we never did find any pellets.

[sskruzr]

I'm officially bummed out. I've been watching the owl's nest a couple of times a week, hoping to see chicks. Last week, I didn't make it down there, due to cold weather and rain. Today, I went by, but couldn't see mama owl sitting on the nest. I took a couple of shots of the nest anyway, hoping that when I blew them up, I might see the fuzzy tops of some chick heads showing.

Instead, the photos showed that the whole top half of the nest was gone! I'm not surprised. I thought the nest was built in a precarious spot. It's on the side of a leaning tree, held in place at the bottom only by a tangle of vines. I worried that a rainstorm or high winds might take it out and we had both last week. Plus, believe it or not, the city came in within the last week, built a concrete pad, and placed a park bench on it next to the path--just 10 yards from the nest! Construction noise may have disturbed things. The nest was clearly visible. I hope some idiot didn't pelt the nest with rocks to knock it down.

Anyway, after seeing the photos, I drove back down and looked on the ground under the nest, just in case there were eggs or chicks in need of help. I found nothing but nest bits and owl pellets. I was probably lucky to find those. The nest is right over a dry stream, which is wet now and may have been running after the rains.

Oh well. It was fun while it lasted. Maybe mama will rebuild somewhere I can see or come back next year. On the plus side, a pair of hawks flew right by me, screeching, and one carrying a mouse. The wind was at such a speed that as the hawk came adjacent to me, it seemed to stand still for a bit. Too bad my camera was still in the backpack! It probably wouldn't have mattered, though, because I had the 1000 mm lens on it and you pretty much need a tripod to get a decent shot with that thing. I'm keeping my eye out for a hawks nest.

You know me, I love rubbing salt into a wound; "So the book must be done."