Not This Time

Wally made his first serious move toward the door at 5pm yesterday and his approach surprised me. He leapt from the back of the nest box with the assistance of his wings. This placed his beak in the doorway (shown in picture) as he flapped his wings and tried to hold on. He fell back down to the floor after about fifteen seconds and has not attempted it again yet. The complexity of the move seems to have him stymied for now, but he is undoubtedly capable of repeating what Peanut did a year ago. Immediately after Wally's attempt, Theodore went into a panic and repeated his "frogman" scratching routine time after time for the next fifteen minutes. This strongly suggests that the purpose of this scratching is to exit the box by digging through the floor. The owlets went from dawn to dusk yesterday without food and without any vocalizations. This was followed by last night's almost non-stop feedings. Wally and Theodore have spent about half of the morning sleeping and the rest flapping their wings, bobbing their heads, and pacing around on the floor. They have received no food since dawn and have been silent. The bees can still be heard building a nest in the upper recesses of the nest box, but have not bothered the owls.

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