Tuesday, August 18, 2009

"My kids...they never call."

Long-time readers of this blog will remember my obsession with the Lake Isabella Great Horned Owl family. These ever-fierce, powerful avian predators have nested at the man-made nest site continuously for years, and I have been watching them since 2006.

At the end of this nesting season, banding of the single owlet brought out many dignitaries of the Cincinnati blogging community. Added to the nest was a "foster" owlet who needed a nest with a step-sibling the same age.

Baby owls go from small piles of dryer lint to tall, slightly fuzzy predators fairly quickly, "branching", i.e. leaving the nest and hanging onto large branches shortly after reaching adult size. And once they fledge, we may never see them again.

Enter Jack Verdin, Owl-Stalker.
Just got an email from him...he saw both of the six-month old owls today, bleating like goats at their parents. (Great Horned Owls, for their first year, will food-beg nearly up to the next nesting season, so just because their babies have left the nest doesn't mean the adults get a lot of peace and quiet.)
Jack couldn't make out the band numbers on the young owls, so he couldn't say who was who.


But a sighting of these once-fuzzy owls is a fine thing. A fine thing indeed.




























They look all grown up, don't they?
(I think they need to work on those plumicorns, though.)
:)

6 comments:

Beth said...

Your kids may not call you, but at least they aren't dropping off their dirty laundry & borrowing the car! Cute pix

Beth

Susan Ellis said...

Who cooks for you?
Great photos...

KGMom said...

Plumicorns? What a cool word. Hmmm--don't think it fits into my daily conversation, though.

Dawn Fine said...

Aww...adorable babes..
get them a cell phone.

Kyle said...

And here I thought you'd made that word up. Plumicorns, eh? I'll have to remember that one.

Great pics, by the way. Isn't it great when friends find your kids and send reports back home to let you know how they're doing? ;-)

dguzman said...

Last time we saw these guys, they were little fluffy balls. Wow, time flies, and so do the owls.