| When Ward dropped off this
star-nosed mole at noon, it seemed obvious that it was far too big for an
owlet to eat alone. Spencer, however, was not so sure and could not take
his eyes off of it. He glanced at the plump seven-inch-long morsel every
couple of minutes as if to size it up. After touching it with his feet
several times, he finally picked it up and shook it vigorously in an
attempt to swallow the whole thing. After a couple minutes of his hopeless
struggling to make it fit, June showed up at the door and stared at him
until he dropped the mole on the floor. She then entered the nest
and divided it up into two generous meals for the owlets. I doubt that
even June would attempt to swallow a critter this big in one gulp.
The owlets also did a lot of wing flapping and leaping today. They combined these two activities to do wing assisted leaps that carried them all the way across the nest and sent them crashing into the wall. These winged leaps will be crucial to their ability to get around when they do leave the nest. They are now three weeks old and while barred owlets do not normally leave the nest until they are more than four weeks old, it can happen sooner and they appear to be developing very rapidly. |
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