Flight School

June has been conducting flight school for the owlets within view of my house for the last three days. Wally and Theodore fly/flutter from one branch to another as she calls to them from nearby trees.  They are able to fly about twenty feet without loosing altitude and have made flights of more than 100 feet with some loss of altitude. They are also capable of near vertical flights of ten to fifteen feet to get back up into trees. In all cases, they are able to make graceful, precision landings on branches at their destination.This is impressive for seven-week-old barred owlets.  June feeds them by landing on a nearby branch and making them come to her. Yesterday, I watched one of the owlets (it's now hard to tell them apart) scamper over several branches to gulp down the mouse she dangled from her beak. Wally (pictured at right) and Theodore have grown tails and look very much like three-quarter scale versions of their parents from behind. From the front, however, their fuzzy gray faces and heads reveal their age. 

At the end of the day, both owlets glide to the dense twisted thicket of trees where Theodore was spotted on May 27th and 28th. Theodore is seen in this picture waiting for Wally before disappearing into the dense canopy above his head. The owlets treat this area as their private jungle gym and I suspect that it has been  their nighttime roost for the last two weeks. The owlets spend most of their daylight hours bobbing and weaving their heads while repeating the wheezing call that they were using when they left the nest more than two weeks ago. Ward watched the flight training activities from his favorite roost about 200 feet away. Both Ward and June have been very vocal for the last few nights with Ward's "wailing" call and June's "hwu-hwu" call suggesting they are arriving with food for the owlets.  June uses her "whining" call to urge the owlets on during daytime flight training.  I am amazed that the family has stayed this close to the nest box for so long.

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