We discovered an owl living in our backyard in April of this year. On one sunny day in May Alli, Doug and Chelsea stopped by for a yummy outdoor picnic. As we were hanging in the sun, Doug asked me "did you know you have an owl in your backyard?" I thought he was referring to the original owl (OO) that we had seen in the trees in April. After a few seconds I realized that was impossible since it was smack in the middle of a very sunny day and owls are nocturnal. Doug then pointed us to an owl sleeping in our backyard! We all thought that it was the OO and that he was potentially hurt. Joel and I later called the Lindsey Wildlife Museum who directed us to Animal Control who kindly came out to help us assess the situation. We learned a number of things that night and in the days that followed:
- Don't EVER touch owls! They are members of the rapture family and will cut your finger off as clean as a cigar clipper cuts a cigar. Harry Potter has romanticized owls but trust me, they are not as friendly as Hedwig.
- Baby owls are called fledglings. Joel knew this, I did not.
- We had a fledgling in our backyard!
- We will never have rodent problems.
- When fledglings are ready to learn how to fly, the mama owl pushes it out of the nest, it floats to the ground and stays there until it learns how to fly.
- The mama owl circles the fledgling bringing it food until it is strong enough to fly. Our OO was circling her baby and the closer we got to the fledgling, the louder she screeched. Our OO is a western screech owl. It was amazing and also so creepy that we ran back inside!
- We not only had 1 fledgling in our backyard - we had 4!!!
Our Original Owl (OO)
Fledgling #1
3 of the 4 New Owls
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