Owl Movie 2004

This baby screech owl appeared on the ground beneath shrubbery next to our house.  At first we wondered where the parents were, but not for long.  When a sudden movement startled him, the baby responded with a clacking noise echoed immediately by a full grown owl in a tree about 10 feet away.  We interpreted the bill-clacking to mean "I have a weapon and am not afraid to use it".  Both parents kept a close vigil every evening.

After two days on the ground he perched in a small shrub near the house for a couple of days (2nd and 3rd pictures), then moved to shrubs at the foot of a nearby ash tree (4th and 5th pictures).  After a couple of days there, he made his big move at dusk, climbing up the trunk of the ash tree to a perch about 15 or 20 feet high (6th, 7th and 8th pictures.  No photography was allowed during the move, since both parents provided close air cover with loud clacking when we tried to get near enough to take a picture.

A few days after he left the ash tree roost, we spotted him with two siblings and mom in an oak tree nearby, then in a day or so with a third sibling.  When the daytime roosts were visible from our deck, both parents were dozing while the owlets alternately dozed and gazed round-eyed at us or other birds and squirrels.  Near dusk, the babies start getting restless and doing a neck-craning, head-bobbing exercise, followed by short flights.  

Several times, at dusk, the four baby owls have come down to low branches in trees near our deck and seem undisturbed by our presence, or maybe even a little curious.   We watched mom feed them one evening, carrying something to each one in turn.  Usually, after a while mom will shoo us off with a couple of close fly-bys including a quiet hoot or hoo-hoot, as if to say, "OK, leave us alone, we have things to do".  Of course, this could instead be her gentle way of saying, "If you don't leave immediately, I'm thinking of ripping off your ears and feeding them to my babies".