It turns out Stephen Colbert was right: today is Superb Owl Sunday!
We knew Iris was acting "eggy" and spending lots of time in the nest.  We now know what egg laying behavior looks like, but didn't see it last night or early this morning.  But this afternoon we were sitting in the living room watching Owl TV as usual.  Hein mentioned Iris' back feathers were starting to lift up, which they do during egg laying.  Then the phone rang and critterwatcher, one of the chat room moderators, said she thought Iris was laying an egg.  Sure enough, she was very obviously laying an egg!
It came out pretty easy...it only seemed to take 5 minutes tops.  She didn't look as nauseous as last year while laying either.
So tune in on February 5 to watch egg #2 be laid.  If Iris is like last year, the eggs were laid EXACTLY 72 hours apart.  So that would be about 3:15 PM Central time.
The really egg-citing thing about this laying date is that this egg should hatch the first day of the International Festival of Owls!  Wow.
Still no egg from Alice, but maybe she's happy with the replica egg I gave her to encourage her to lay her own.

Iris is starting to feel eggy.  She's started sitting in her nest now, and for longer periods of time.  I haven't noticed many belly feathers falling out yet, but that may not start until just before the first egg.
In this video Rusty brings food to Iris, which she eventually accepts.  She doesn't eat it, but instead flies to the hatch perch to cache it, then returns to sit on the nest.  She will stop eating or eat very, very little before laying eggs.  There's only so much room in a bird's abdomen when you need to stay light in order to fly.  So not eating could indicate eggs are on the way. 

Stay tuned!

Originally posted Sunday, 19 January 2014 20:49

​If you're a regular to the Rusty and Iris live cam, you have probably "met" at least some of our chat room moderators. A few have opted to let you see the face behind the name so you can get to know them just a little bit.