Evening Owl Prowl

DerOwl Hannah

Our evening routine changes once the owlets aren't in a contained space. To find them each evening we have to go prowling, tip-toe-ing around the neighborhood at dusk, listening (through all the shockingly loud urban sounds we normally don't notice quite so much) for the hoots of the parents and the raspy chirps of the owlets. Initially, the family stays within a block of the nest box for hunting lessons. Utility lines are especially useful perches as they run the lengths of the alleys, providing a view down into the back yards where the good bug stashes are. Many evenings that is where we find all seven owls lined up, diving one at a time into a yard and swooping back up to the line with a morsel. At this point, the parents are both feeding the owlets and teaching them to hunt for themselves. They gradually venture further and further from home base and it becomes harder to find and follow them. 

During these three weeks, our most important nightly quest is to find them in order to see if all of them are still alive. Every night poses countless threats, especially since they do most of their hunting on the ground, nabbing bugs from lawns and gardens, where their chances of being killed by a domestic cat are enormous. Amazingly, last year's entire brood survived until their departure date, which is when the parents determine that the owlets are ready to be on their own and take them away to go find their own territory. This year, by the end of that crucial three weeks, one owlet had been killed, and the parents took only four owlets away to start their own lives. Only one owlet lost, though, can be counted as a success!

About ten days after the whole family suddenly departs,* we'll notice that one of the adults has returned alone, and then ten days or so after that, we'll hear the two of them reuniting, doing the fast-paced mating call once they've located each other. They also make one final return visit to the nest box and have a conversation in it before vacating the nest box for the season and moving into their summer-fall-winter homes, Boyle in a box one block south of here and DerOwl Hannah in a box one block west of here. They don't sleep in the same box, but they do find each other every evening and head out together to hunt. 

Thus endeth the 2018 owl saga, and we can now fill in some of the blanks in their schedule:

	2017	2018
	pre Nest cam	with Nest cam
DH moves into nestbox	BY Mar 19	Mar 18
lays egg #1	?	Mar 19
lays egg #2	?	Mar 22
lays egg #3	?	Mar 24
lays egg #4	?	Mar 27
DH starts incubating	?	Mar 29
lays egg #5	?
DH gets restless	?	Apr 17
audible chirping from inside eggs	?	Apr 23
hatch #1	?	Apr 24	2 by early am
#2	?	"
#3	?	"	2 more by 8pm
#4	?	"
#5	?	Apr 26
DH moves out of nest	?	May 15
owlet appears in hole	May 12	not noted
fledge	May 24	May 25	oldest 4
fledge	May 25	May 26	#5
parents depart with owlets	June 14	June 16	one parent & 3 owlets
		June 18	one parent and last owlet
Boyle returns (one owl in box)	June 24	June 30
DH returns (both owls in box)	July 13	July 11

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*In 2017, the whole family departed on the same night. This year, one parent departed with 3 owlets on June 16 and one parent stayed behind an extra day with a straggler who must not have been ready to leave yet.