| The owlets are now able to scurry
through the treetops with such ease that it looks like play. Seymour (top
picture on June 7th) still needs to climb the trunk to gain altitude, but
can do winged leaps of fifteen feet or more to branches of adjacent
trees. Emily, who is shown in the lower picture with Seymour, had
advanced a bit further by June 9th when she left Seymour to fly to a branch
ten feet above this one. You will notice that they still have not grown
tails, so that stability would be a problem if they attempted longer
flights. This should change in the next two weeks, as the tail feathers
grow and June starts flight school. I could hear Rufus in the distance,
but he was too well hidden for me to get a picture.
June moved the owlets back into the deep woods on the 10th, and I have not heard or seen them since then. As they become more mobile and independent, I hope to see more of them, but that is impossible to predict. Barred owls occupy territories of about one square mile, and you never know where they might be after they leave the nest. |
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Back To: Summer 2000