Tag Archives: Western Screech-Owl

The fledgling, the feline, and the fiend

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A few hours after last week’s post went live, I got my first glimpse of the fledgling owl peeking out of the owl box. I went to bed wondering when it might leave its home for the first time. I didn’t have long to wonder.

I woke up the next morning, said a quick prayer for the fledgling to be safe, and got out of bed to start my day. As soon as I saw the silhouette against the screen, I knew our owlet had left home.

It was still mostly dark outside, but I could see the shape flutter up and down the screen and finally hop along the ground at the base of our house. Shortly afterward, it hopped over into some bushes by our back fence. That’s when the drama began.

A California scrub-jay, aka “the fiend”

A California scrub-jay hovered around the fence, calling in shrill complaint, announcing the presence of the baby owl. Then I saw it: the neighbor’s cat, still as ice on the most frozen winter day, stalking the owlet from atop the fence. It was more than I could stand. I went outside and chased the cat back into its own yard. The jay flew away. Continue reading →

Beating the summer heat

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The unofficial start of summer kicks off with Memorial Day weekend, but where I live, we’ve already seen triple temperatures. Bleh. This no longer counts as springtime to me. Some of my friends love the hot weather. I do not. Though I was raised in a place of heat and humidity, summer is not my favorite season. It’s not even my second-favorite season. Life in California—with its cloudless days, searing heat, lack of shade, and rattlesnakes—has bumped summer down to my least favorite season.

As a runner, I find myself getting up earlier and earlier to dodge the baking sun and rising temps each morning. Yesterday, desperate to avoid a repeat of Monday’s too-hot, too-late-in-the-morning run, I found a handy tool that tells you when the sun will rise and set where you live. (Just for fun, I’ve set it to show times for Daphne, Alabama. You can type in your own city/town and see how it changes for today. Drag the daily line along to see how it will lengthen until June 21 and then begin to shorten. Type in a place south of the equator, and you’ll see the opposite effect.)

I’m not the only one trying to find ways to beat the heat. Western screech-owls have returned to nest in the box on our house, and a couple of evenings ago, I looked outside to see this:

A thirsty owl

An owl sat perched in the waterfall of our backyard koi pond. I didn’t want to scare it away, especially because the fish didn’t seem concerned about its presence. I grabbed the camera and took some shots from inside the house.

Continue reading →

The owls and the interloper

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Our owls came back to nest this year, and my husband and I have enjoyed seeing the increased activity around the owl box in the past few weeks. The parent owls showed themselves more during the daytime this year and even did a few too many fly-bys of my head when I was outside in the evenings.

NestingOwl2016_1FT

Mamma or daddy owl (a western screech-owl) on high alert. Its markings are beautiful.

Others nearby haven’t been as thrilled with the owls nesting in our bird box. Somewhere close to the box is a hummingbird nest, along with the nest of another sort of bird—perhaps a black phoebe (I’m not sure about the identification of that one). There are other tiny birds in the area, too, and I wonder if they have a nest somewhere in those trees, too.

As the mother owl left the nest more frequently, the other birds flitted around the trees by the box, pitching a frenzied “Go away!” fit. Continue reading →

The owl and the cat

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I promised an update on my owl post from a couple of weeks ago. You remember the owl, right?

Houseguest2015_3FT

We had a bit of drama the night of the post. My husband and I were cleaning up the kitchen, sorting through mail, doing the sorts of tasks we normally do at the end of the evening. Our dog, who had been asleep in the living room, all of a sudden went berserk by the window closest to the owl house.

I saw something moving on one of the window panes and flipped on an outside light to see what was happening. I realized it was the owl—clearly a juvenile out of its nest but unable to fly—clinging as if for dear life to one of the thin bars across the window. On the ground below, staring up at it, sat our next-door neighbor’s cat. Continue reading →

The houseguests

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I’m a big fan of nature, but there are certain kinds of nature I don’t especially care for: ticks, mosquitoes, skunks and snakes take turns at the top of the list. When people ask my husband how we’re settling in to our new home, he typically replies along these lines: “We’re doing well, except for some close encounters with nature.” This allows us to tell the dog v. skunk story, or talk about the dead rattlesnake I saw on a walk with the dog, or describe the coyote that seemed a little too interested in the dog and me a few mornings ago.

I was sitting in the living room one evening last week, when motion in my peripheral vision caught my attention. I looked out of the window and could see something small, slender and silvery (very snakelike) dangling in the tree. I quickly realized it was a snake, possibly alive, in the bill of an owl.

The owl didn’t surprise me. For several weeks in the evening, I’d been catching sight of an owl in those trees. It has even flapped overhead when I’m out for one last trip of the night with the dog.

The snake part disconcerted me, though. I immediately Googled: Do owls eat snakes. The response wasn’t entirely reassuring.

Yes, owls eat snakes (along with rodents and other undesirable critters—yay for owls!), but screech owls may also bring a small, live snake to their nests to keep the nest clean of bugs and other critters. After that, I guess the owl probably eats the snake. I almost feel sorry for the snake.

My overactive imagination conjured up snakes dropping out of owls’ nests onto my head. And then I wondered if I could just live inside for the rest of my life. Nooooo, I like outside too much.

Besides owls are good and cool, even if they are a bit spooky with their piercing stares and talons, and even if they do invite in strange houseguests. So I was excited at the prospect of a nest and owls keeping rodents away. I went outside the next day to see if I could find a nest. It didn’t take long:

Houseguest2015_1FT

A little owl peeks out of its house.

I’m not sure how I never noticed this house before, attached to the side of our house. But there it was, complete with a fluffy owl looking out—in the middle of the day. Aren’t owls supposed to be nocturnal? Was this one a fledgling, maybe a teenage owl trying to push the limits of its curfew? Is there a live snake in that box attached to my house?

These questions whirled around in my head. I took two more pictures.

Houseguest2015_2FT Houseguest2015_3FT

When I emailed these photos to my husband, he said the owl looked angry in the last picture. “That’s why there aren’t four pictures,” I responded. I’ve learned that owls intimidate me.

While I’m delighted to be hosting an owl family, I’m new at this. I have lots of questions:

  • Is the one in the photo a juvenile? If not, why is it so fuzzy?
  • Why is it awake/alert during the day?
  • Is it a Western Screech-Owl? (I’ve only seen an owl flying around at night and haven’t heard any owl songs to help me identify it.)
  • Will the mom and dad get protective of the nest in ways the dog and I may interpret as aggressive?
  • Will it eat skunks (oh, pretty please, I hope so.)?
  • Is it likely to drop live snakes from its house? Or will it eat the snake when nesting is done (oh, pretty please, I hope so.)?
  • How long is nesting season?

If you’ve had owls nest near (or on) your house before, what advice do you have? Or maybe you’re an owl expert and can help with some of these questions? I’d love to hear from you.