Close Encounters

Or Love Is In The Air ♥

Wow what a night of excitement and suspense.  Of course it's always something with Salt and Pepper. First, I must tell you that we didn't have any video Friday night; so as you can imagine I was chomping at the bit to see what the owls were up to. Well let me tell you...

***The live stream was up probably around 7pm. I tuned in again at 7:25pm, Salt and Pep were on the branches and left at 7:27. At 7:30 Pepper was back on the side branch, Salt on the front branch. Skipping a few incidentals here; Salt goes into the box and starts scratching and cleaning house. Pepper now on front branch, at around 8:11 from the box lots of twittering (or whatever the name), Pepper in front of doorway now: noises get louder and more persistent. Finally goes into box, more sounds and at 8:20 both out. From that time all the way to 11:23pm, one or both was on the branches. At 11:23, Salt goes back in box, does a little cleaning and out at 11:32pm. Again constant one or both on the branches. 2:26am Pepper on lower side branch and Salt flies in. Pep greets him and then invites him (vocal and low stance) and we have our first mating on camera at least. They are then gone for a while. Exciting enough for you?? Oh you want more, well how about this.....

Stay Off My Turf!

Early morning, 4:50am Pepper is back. Salt is on the front branch. At 5:42am Pepper takes off after something. She returns at 5:43, immediately in defense mode and another Owl flies in and an altercation begins. My thoughts after seeing a third time is that this was another female and just letting Pep know it's her area also. Well...I never...the nerve of some Owls!!  Pepper then moves closer to Salt with a few words, and at 5:56am we have another mating session to finish out the night. We thought perhaps Pepper would come back and stay, but, she made her last quick appearance at 6:04am and left.
As you can see from the videos that we are very close to nesting now...Just waiting for Salt to bring that rodent gift... 
 










 












** Tara informs me that the live stream was before 7pm, at which time Salt wasted no time and bonded with Pepper. Also, another bonding at 7:40pm. Thank you Tara
** I also forgot to mention that (as the picture shows) no bands were on this intruder. 
 

 

Problem Solved

Owl Box Repaired - Photo by: Maggie Rufo

Last year I noticed that Salt seemed to be getting his talons stuck between the two walls of the entryway. I reported that to H.O.P. and they came up with a temporary fix. A plastic piece that covered this area, it seemed to work fine. Salt and Pepper successfully raised a nice size clutch of five.

This year Salt and Pepper haven't started a clutch as yet, although Salt has been in the box twice that I have seen. He was definitely having a heck of a time getting both in and out of the box. I wasn't sure about why this was - so I made a short video of it and sent it to Anne (WildCare). They have always been so good about any problems or questions about the owl box and this was no exception. They discussed the problem, looked over the video, and decided the problem was the plastic piece. The owls couldn't get a grip on it to go in or out. (my guess is after a year it probably hardened up or got brittle). So Maggie and Don went to Nicasio and fixed it! Don removed the plastic piece and filled in any gaps with a quick drying wood putty so the owls wouldn't get those talons caught again. Thank you Don, Maggie and Anne for the quick response....now we wait for Salt and Pepper to start, and they have a safe place again to raise a new clutch...

Wednesday and Thursday night we did not have any live feed, so looking forward to tonight.