Originally posted Saturday, 08 March 2014 22:38 Rusty and Iris' first egg of 2014 was laid on Superb Owl Sunday, and conveniently hatched during the International Festival of Owls. The pip was first noticed on Friday, March 7. The next morning the pip was larger, but there were no more good views until almost 10 PM when Iris got off the nest and we got the first views of this special owlet, dry and fluffy already.
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Originally posted Friday, 07 March 2014 07:40 The first egg, laid on Superb Owl Sunday, is getting ready to hatch. It's now peeping and chittering inside the egg. In this video clip Victor, a resident wild bachelor owl, is hooting in the distance, getting Rusty and Iris a little riled and hooting back. Alice, our education owl, is also joining into the hootenanny. Iris has been giving the eggs funny looks lately, probably because she knows something is up. Watch for hatching to happen today and tomorrow, during the start of our International Festival of Owls.
Originally posted Monday, 17 February 2014 19:44 Earlier this week an unidentified wild owl paid a visit. She did quite a bit of squawking one night, along with some hooting, and more hooting the next night. She really got Rusty and Iris riled, and both Victor and Rhett (the resident wild males) came in to hoot also. I reviewed spectrograms to see if it might be Pandora, the owlet we lost track of a few days after releasing her. The voice was similar to one of our owlets, but not exact, so I'm thinking it wasn't her. She didn't seem to be with either Victor or Rhett. I'm curious if Victor will take a liking to her, since he's still single as far as I know.
Originally posted Monday, 03 February 2014 12:52 Rusty brought food to Iris in the nest this morning, and Iris decided to go and eat it over on the hatch perch. This left Rusty the perfect chance to get a good look at the first egg of the yeat that he fathered. It must be a magnificent egg since it was laid on Superb Owl Sunday!
Originally posted Sunday, 02 February 2014 15:51 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. Originally posted Sunday, 02 February 2014 12:44 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! |
AuthorKarla Bloem is the Executive Director of the International Owl Center. ArchivesCategories
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