Ernie
and Abigail climbed straight to the top of the giant pine tree that holds
the nest box while Emmett was a bit bolder. He used the winged leaps that
he had practiced in the nest box to flutter to nearby trees such as the
maple that he is shown in here. Jumps longer than about five feet resulted
in a loss of altitude, so that he still had to climb to get higher. I was
able to witness the limits of this climbing when he tried unsuccessfully
to climb a vertical branch that was about as smooth as those shown here.
He was forced to give up when he was unable to get a grip on the smooth
bark and his wings alone could not provide enough lift. They do much
better on oaks, pines and other trees that have rough bark for their talons
to grip.
The
next day, one of the other owlets (probably Abigail) left the nest box
tree and tried to climb the nearby pine tree that contains Ward's favorite
perch. She is shown here climbing to the end of a branch where she
attempted to leap to a slightly higher branch. She jumped far enough, but
could not grip the new branch and fell about fifteen feet before landing
on a lower branch and starting her climb again. As awkward as their
technique might be, the owlets do make slow progress and can eventually
move significant distances. June controls the direction of their movement
by calling to them and forcing them to come toward her to get food.