Very Wet Owlett

As some of you may know, Nashville experienced a rain last weekend like we have not seen in this area in 70 some years. At our home in Hendersonville, we received more than 15" of rain within 48 hours - unheard of!! Luckily for us, we live well up the ridge and halfway up a hill in a hollow. This location protects us from high winds and also from most of the impacts of heavy rain. Our front yard (near the road) was a river by Saturday night, and we were unable to leave our home due to the flooded creek.

Because of our inability to leave, we were also lucky enough to catch a glimpse of one of the Owletts that fledged 3 days earlier. This is the first time that we have ever seen live chicks after they have left the nest. We did, however only see one. I fear the worst for the other...

Anyway, here is the chick that we saw on Sunday....
He was VERY wet! Cute, but wet. :)



If there is any way that you can help with the recovery, either with money or volunteer time, consider doing so. Here is a great place to start.

Another Big Day

Today was the Carolina Wrens' turn to get their babies out of the nest box -- well actually they used a plastic gourd for this nesting.

I was just minding my own business, leaving for work, backing the van out of the garage and noticed a lot of wren chatter. Looked in my side mirror and saw something more stout than a leaf drop down behind my car. I got out to find this little guy: I actually had to "chase" him around a bit in orde to get him out of the driveway. No sooner did I get him back with his sibs, I turned around and saw this!
Another little Wren that needed to be moved along. This one was a bit more fiesty and it took a couple more minutes. All was well though. I cornered him and got him up into the holly bush.

Happy little Wrens. They seemed a bit under-developed for fledging and I hope that they weather the coming weather ok.

Second Family Photos

I finally got an up close view of my 2nd group of bluebird fledglings. (Mom disappeared about three days before they fledged, but Dad remained ever vigilant in feeding and caring for them.)

Once they fledged, I only ever saw Dad at the feeder. He would go in, eat a few dried meal worms then take several back to the babies high in the trees.

About a week ago, they decided to be more social - at least long enough for me to get some photos of the little darlings !

Too Excited for Words!

Ok, I can not contain myself!! Today I scooted home a bit early from the store so that I could watch a movie that I had never seen... "The Runaway" 1961 starring Caesar Romero - excellent movie, but it costars a Greyhound so I may be a bit biased. But I digress. I went upstairs and just happened to look out the window to see if there was any activity at the Barred Owl box. Lo and behold, there was a Barred Owl chick peaking out of the box. These first pics were taken through the window. Not great quality, but s/he sure is cute anyway.

I really wanted to get a bit higher quality pics for you all so cranked open the window, and s/he didn't seem to mind too much - though you can see the air of wariness in each of these pics.

The end of the movie came and I decided to take the dogs for a walk, and upon returning, it was apparent that this little Owlett was getting ready to experience their world more closely. I ran back upstairs to try to get some more pics. It was about 7:30pm here in the woods -- so a very low light situation for picture taking... oh and I have yet to read the manual that came with my camera so was unsure of the setting that I needed. I LOVE that you can see their little feet in the weirdly blue picture. CUTE!

I hope that this little Owlett will remain in the box tonight, as we saw two coyotes last Monday about 100' behind the house. Owletts, when they fledge, will climb out of the nesting box, and climb a bit up the tree. They will then flutter down to an adjecent tree and climb back up to continue to do this until they are into a safer place to hang out. Unfortunately, last year our little fledgling ended up on the ground (which is not uncommon) and all we found was a little piece of wing - it was very sad. :-( All that work by the parents, to come to that end....