Last evening was great fun for us. We got to watch “daddy owl” give flying lessons to two little ones. They’re about 5 weeks old now, and it’s time to go to school.

Here he is a couple of hours before his first lesson.

Over the next 3 to 4 weeks, they’ll hone their flying skills and learn to hunt. We’ve got plenty of small rodents around, so hunting will be more a function of learning to fly, dive, and kill the prey.

There’s at least one more baby still in the nest.

The first little guy we saw plopped down in the front yard. He did one of those really ugly “chin landings” and then lurched around the yard a bit. I would imagine the grass felt pretty funny on his feet. Pretty soon, he sought refuge on the back tire of our truck, before again trying out his wings.

He flew to our turnaround, and then to the top of the truck before really becoming brave and heading for the Chinese Elm trees. Daddy was never very far away.

At one point, Bev got a little close and he actually scolded her. She really felt bad as all she was doing was walking down our front walk. Guess she got in the way of his line of sight.

Cindy and I stayed outside until nearly dark, watching the little baby climb to the top of the tree. With Daddy’s encouragement, it even flew from tree to tree.

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Tags: chinese elm trees, fly, hunting, landings, long eared owl, owl babies, prey, wings

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Over the past couple of months, we’ve been watching what we thought was one long-eared owl sitting in first one pine tree and then the other pine tree.

We could see evidence (litter and dropped food) that “it” was spending most of it’s time hanging out in our front yard and the two pine trees.

Now, the one big pine tree has a very large nest, which hasn’t been used since we got here in 2005.

Imagine our surprise this morning when all-of-a-sudden, Cindy hollered for me to grab the camera… there’s a baby owl sitting on the edge of the nest!

We spent several hours trying to get decent pictures with the digital camera, but between the wind, the long pine needles, a rather long distance, and a bashful baby, we didn’t get much.

Bev has now set up her 35mm and we’re shooting a roll of film, exclusively owls.

Guess you could call it “film at 11″… several weeks from now.

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Tags: baby owl, long eared owl, owl family, owls

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Shari Thomas

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The critters are all coming out of their winter digs, and are on the prowl for prey. This past week we observed a huge male coyote digging in what was most likely a rabbit warren, looking for food. You can’t imagine how surprised we were to see him, less than 100 yards from our front door in broad daylight.

Because most of us raise sheep, our first instinct is to shoot him, even though he’s not currently bothering our sheep. We know he’s likely to slip back under cover of darkness.

Good news for wily coyote, Cindy feels he’s too far away, pointed in the wrong direction, and also about 400 yards away are people in a horse pen working their horses. So, she “shot” him with the camera!

Yesterday, another predator came to visit. Bev spotted this Long-Eared Owl in a tree between our driveway and the chicken coop. We think he was hoping we had stupid chickens, since the protective netting was destroyed in the last snow storm. They still have some cover, if the owl is brave enough (and stupid), he could fly into their pen, and possibly get into the coop.

Saturday, our neighbors had to go out of town, so they asked if we’d feed the two “bummer” lambs. These two were both rejected by their mothers. In the case of the white one, his mother didn’t have enough milk for twins. The black one’s mother was just too stupid to know what happened. She has zero mothering skills.

We’re still waiting for our girls to start birthing. From the looks of them, it will be another couple days at least.

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Tags: Bev, bummer, Chickens, Cindy, farm, lamb, lambs, long eared owl, predator, Sheep, wily coyote

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Shari Thomas

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