The events of this week have left us all with a heavy heart and soul. We gather together every day to peek into the private world of Mel & Syd and after the tremendous success of last year we have all been taken from the safe and secure adventure into the real world of what wild life is really about.
My first love is wild life and the world they live in but then my passion is education and sharing what I know with others so that they can better understand the "Circle of Life" and how "Mother Nature" works.
Early on I knew there was a problem just by seeing the number of rodents decrease from last years intakes [making reference to all the California Owl Boxes]. Noticing that there was a decline in rodents coming into the nest I knew there was going to be a problem after the owlets hatched in keeping them fed. Syd totally shocked me when she started leaving the nest while the owlets were at such an early age, this is not normal for a mother to do with such young babies and we all knew it. But I also knew that Syd knew they needed food, but what puzzled me is that no one saw her coming back in with food every time she left.
What happened Monday night was truly upsetting to me and I had only seen this before in nestlings that were starving. For baby owlets to behave in the manner they did after Mel dropped off that mouse was confirmation of my fears that they were not getting enough to eat. For what seemed like over an hour Maggie continued to try to eat that beat up mouse and in her attempts to get it down her movements were triggering all the owlets food reactions which lead to a serious slap down beat around food fight. This is were I feel that both Alice and Roo were injured in the trample for food. Their being so small compared to Maggie and Boomer left them handicapped to the bigger 2's fight over the rodent.
Last night really has me wondering what is going on with Syd. I have heard the "rumors" that are going around that this isn't Syd. That has to stop!!!! She was positively identified by dandi and yvonne - painstakingly going through photos and matching the "heart" shape markings on her wing which I agree with. Those spots on owls are just like our finger prints, that is their identity and no 2 owls would be marked the same. This IS Syd but Syds behavior isn't what we are use to. For her to take off last night and Mel to have delivered a mouse, rabbit and gopher and her not to come back and shred to feed is not normal at this age. Something is going on here that we don't know or have a clue what is happening so I can't enlighten you at all about this. All I can do is give you my professional opinion on what I do know and that is there is a problem here. There is more than we can see happening in the nests this year and that it may not be over yet. There has been loss in all most all the Barn Owl nests this year and in a couple the eggs haven't hatched yet so there will be more information and lessons to learn.
After a couple of successful years like we have seen of the Barn Owls raising so many clutches in the Southern California area I can only wonder how many are out there hunting the territory. Mel and Syd stayed in their territory year round, they never left, this has been confirmed to me by kanga telling me he could see and hear them calling each other just about every day. We also know that most likely "Dinky is still hanging around there by the UFO. I have watched this very closely and that is not an intruding owl, that is an off spring because there had been no direct attack upon it until after the owlets hatched. The UFO is way to comfortable with the nest, playground and area to be an intruder and the UFO has made no threat to the nest itself. Taking into consideration that they fledged 6 owlets last year plus themselves that is a total of 8 owls in that area. Count the numbers from Molly/McGee and the other nests that are around that area and that is a lot of owls for a residential area of the country.
Last year I was also studying Owliver/Owlivia when they kept coming back into the nest during the really hot summer days which made no sense to sit in an oven on a hot summer day panting. After chatting with the nest owner while this happened one day I asked him to go outside and tell me what he saw. When he came back he told me hawks were circling the area which then made perfect sense that they were scared and hiding in the nest. Most likely they were not O&O but off spring which still viewed the nest as safety and secure. Older experienced adults know how to hide in the tree and look like they are part of it. It is only by close observation that many things can be answered, but that makes it hard when your watching a camera on a screen thousand of miles away.
Kanga has given us such a treat with the cams on the playground that gives us a much better view into their little world and I am so great full for the opportunity to bird watch from the comfort of my home. But this is just a small window we get to look into that only shows a very small part of their life and what it takes to survive in the wild.
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