International Owl Center
  • Home
  • Programs and Events
    • Owl Prowls
    • Special programs
    • Virtual Owl Expert Speaker Series
    • International Owl Awareness Day
    • Virtual Programs
    • Festival of Owls
    • School and Group Programs
    • Lunch for the Owls
    • Ukrainian Art for Ukrainian Kids
  • DIY Activities
    • Owl Crafts
    • Cat Toys
    • Dissect Owl Pellets
    • Build a Nest Box
    • Coloring Pages
    • Puzzles
  • Future Plans
  • Our Research
    • Research Basics
    • Live Cam
    • Hear Individual Owls
    • Types of Great Horned Owl Vocalizations
    • Great Horned Owl Growth Chart
    • Background Info >
      • History of Rusty and Iris
      • What happened to Rusty and Iris's young?
      • Owl Glossary
      • Great Horned Owl Facts
    • Blog
  • I found an injured owl!
    • What do I do?
    • Find a Rehabber
  • Owls and You
    • Joggers and Owls
    • Live an Owl-Friendly Life
    • Respectful Owl Photography and Observation
    • Owls as Pets
    • Owls Attacking Pets
    • Owl Myths and FAQ
  • Visit Us / About Us
    • Visit
    • Our Owls
    • Staff and Board
    • History
  • Support Us
    • Memberships
    • Donate
    • Founder's Circle
    • Other Ways to Help
  • Educator Resources
    • Education Methods
    • Assessing Impact
    • Regulations
    • Workshop Summary
    • Resources
    • Links
  • Owl Conferences
    • Future Conferences
    • Past Conferences
    • Conference Planning
    • E-Newsletter
  • Kids' Art Contest
  • Store
  • Home
  • Programs and Events
    • Owl Prowls
    • Special programs
    • Virtual Owl Expert Speaker Series
    • International Owl Awareness Day
    • Virtual Programs
    • Festival of Owls
    • School and Group Programs
    • Lunch for the Owls
    • Ukrainian Art for Ukrainian Kids
  • DIY Activities
    • Owl Crafts
    • Cat Toys
    • Dissect Owl Pellets
    • Build a Nest Box
    • Coloring Pages
    • Puzzles
  • Future Plans
  • Our Research
    • Research Basics
    • Live Cam
    • Hear Individual Owls
    • Types of Great Horned Owl Vocalizations
    • Great Horned Owl Growth Chart
    • Background Info >
      • History of Rusty and Iris
      • What happened to Rusty and Iris's young?
      • Owl Glossary
      • Great Horned Owl Facts
    • Blog
  • I found an injured owl!
    • What do I do?
    • Find a Rehabber
  • Owls and You
    • Joggers and Owls
    • Live an Owl-Friendly Life
    • Respectful Owl Photography and Observation
    • Owls as Pets
    • Owls Attacking Pets
    • Owl Myths and FAQ
  • Visit Us / About Us
    • Visit
    • Our Owls
    • Staff and Board
    • History
  • Support Us
    • Memberships
    • Donate
    • Founder's Circle
    • Other Ways to Help
  • Educator Resources
    • Education Methods
    • Assessing Impact
    • Regulations
    • Workshop Summary
    • Resources
    • Links
  • Owl Conferences
    • Future Conferences
    • Past Conferences
    • Conference Planning
    • E-Newsletter
  • Kids' Art Contest
  • Store
International Owl Center

First Egg Peeping and Ready to Hatch!

6/3/2017

0 Comments

 
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.
0 Comments

Whoooooo Is It?

6/3/2017

0 Comments

 
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.
0 Comments

Superb Owl Sunday: Iris Lays Egg #1 for 2014

6/3/2017

0 Comments

 
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.
0 Comments

Egg Watch

6/3/2017

1 Comment

 
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!
1 Comment

    Author

    Karla Bloem is the Executive Director of the International Owl Center.

    ​Older blog archives can be found on Alice's Blog.

    Archives

    December 2017
    June 2017

    Categories

    All
    Education Birds
    Eggs
    Food Transfer
    Iris
    Old Blog Posts
    Owlets
    Rusty
    Wild GHOs

    RSS Feed


International Owl Center
126 E Cedar St.
Houston, MN 55943

(507) 896-OWLS (6957)
[email protected]
​
501(c)(3) organization
​EIN #45-5503365
Donate
Picture
See our score on GuideStar
The Explore Minnesota logo.
The Explore La Crosse logo.
The Houston Area Chamber of Commerce logo.

The International Festival of Owls logo.
Links  - ​ Privacy policy
  • TripAdvisor