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Sunday, April 24, 2011

EASTER SURPRISE--4 Owlets hatch

Between yesterday morning's break and this morning's (5:35), Momma Screech welcomed 4 new owls into the world.  The first sign of hatching was a view of an egg shell at 2:34 in the afternoon (4/23) followed by a brief view of a motionless ball of fluff at 3:03.  She spent the entire day on top of the remaining eggs and the newly hatched owlet(s).  At 8:15 in the evening, she retrieved a cached mouse, picked small pieces off of it and fed one of the owlets.  The camera managed to capture that moment but you have to watch very closely:



Momma never took an evening break.  Apparently, she spent the rest of the night assisting other eggs hatch and feeding the newly hatched owlets.  Virtually all of the activity took place under her body out of sight of the camera.  At about 5:30 on Easter morning, April 24, she finally took a break of about 6 minutes and gave us a view of the brood.



With 4 owlets and still 2 eggs to brood, Momma (and Papa) is going to be very busy for a few weeks.

1 comment:

Gail said...

I just finished watching all of your videos and reading the blog. Thank you so much for doing this. It's wonderful to be able to see this.