Aren't these guys adorable?
They decided to take up residence in a tree just a mere 5 yards off our deck. (I hope they didn't think this was a quiet neighborhood to live in) For several days we thought the chattering coming from the tree was nothing but a bunch of boring old squirrels. UNTIL.....one of the kids said ' Dad what is that in the tree? It's moving, see...."
I said "That bump on the tree?"
The kids again insisted "It's not a bump on the tree. It's moving, SEE,..... there it goes again!"
Dad orders a kid to retrieve the binoculars and upon inspection said, "I'll. be. darned. It's an owl!"
A chorus of squeals erupts and every child demands a turn at the binoculars. This then sets off curiousty buttons and the books get dragged off the shelves, the computer gets booted up and the learnin' begins. 
But fellow homeschoolers know, we can't let the learnin' be left to just reading books or searching the Internet....... We have to get hands on learnin' too. Which is why we picked up a few owl pellets to di-sect.
As you can see the kids loved it! Really,... they did!
(Ain't nothin' like pickin' apart owl vomit on the supper table.) 
According to our books, we have screech owls in the tree. One is in its red phase according to 'the' books. We read that the owls are VERY protective of their nests and have been known to attack humans on the head when they come too close to the nest.
"NO ONE is to go NEAR the tree! Ya hear!"
As you can imagine the owls haven't gotten an ounce of privacy. They are spied on every minute of the day. A few days later, we thought our red owl had transitioned into the gray phase however upon further investigation it was discovered that we had 2 adults in the nest. A red owl and a gray owl. Which means..........you guessed it........BABY OWLS.......
After several evenings of intense watching we were priviledged to observe the baby birds leaving the nest......I wish I had pics but....a) our camera doesn't zoom in that far (We had to borrow a neighbors camera just to get these pics).... b) the camera's do not take very good pictures in the dark, no matter how many different buttons and flashes we tried.
We counted 5 baby owls. They were so precious! They still had downy white fluffy feather's on them. The mother or father (not sure if the red owl is a male or female) sat on a nearby tree branch chattering away to her babies as they each left the nest. The next to the last baby owl was reluctant to leave the nest. So much so, that it's sibling was more than happy to push him out. (sounds like they would fit in well around here) The baby owl attached its talons to the opening of the tree with what I would call a 'death grip' as his sibling peered out of the opening in awe of the outside world. It was holding on for dear life and flapping those wings! I turned my back for a quick second and it flew away.
What an amazing event to have watched. Not only were I and dh in awe, but the kids were just as excited and had a blast keeping track of which tree, each bird was on. They were even blessed with an extreme close-up view when one of the baby owl's landed on top of our bird feeder, just a few feet away, for a brief few seconds. I am sure the owl was given a fright of its life when the kids squealed "Awwww's!" of delight loudly!
The following night, we were trying to see if all the birds came back to the nest or left for good. While trying to count, through our binoculars, and determine how many birds were in the nest we watched 2 Bluejays approach the hole in the tree and proceed to attack the owls inside the hole. What another AMAZING site to witness! Lots of flapping wings and loud squelching. Fortunately, the owls won that battle. Sadly, we came out the next morning to discover that all the owls were gone.
I guess they decided that this neighborhood was just too noisy and inhabited with rude neighbors who don't knock when they come over. Personally I would have talked to people in the neighborhood and scoped it out a little before I decided to move in....but that's just me...
Have an owl-fully good week!!
"And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good." -Genesis 1:21 | 
Thursday, July 23, 2009 - Untitled Comment
Last night there was a bat zooming around in front of our house! They fly kind of wobbly!