Morning all; dinner time here - well getting close - off to check the options; back to catch up later.
Momma shielding her babies
http://scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk/things-to-do/wildlife-webcams/loch-of-lowes/
RSPB Giving Nature a Home
Joan: I've been watching the owls and thinking about them. That female seems distressed to me. Maybe the male isn't bringing her food. If he's attempting to mate often, but is failing to bring her adequate food, that would explain her aggression toward him and her distress. She may be hungry. She would be reluctant to produce young if she is underweight and not in good health.
They were both sitting outside the box in the barn and seemed to be tolerating each other, albeit with not much warmth. The diary previously said that the landowner had seen them copulating, so it must be a pair. I don't know whether it's the same breeding pair as last year. Anyway, could be hunger.
Jay-Me - I started family history seriously in 1985. I have visited some of the villages from whence the ancestors came. My English g-g-grfather came from Orton in Westmorland. Others in Scotland, Ireland & Germany. [I claim to be a pure-bred mongrel.] Nowadays I spend my time collecting names from Gazettes and archive files to post on the internet to help those who cannot easily get to the repositories. eg records of deserters, missing persons, land purchases, gold diggers.
Paul - I can imagine there were lots of "Heron!" in a certain tone of voice at school where your sense of humour was probably not appreciated. LOL
Brenda -I am quite willing to lend out teen-sitting duties anytime you want to practise!!! Dau#1 hinted she needed another outing soon. Alas I have 3 WEA trips planned over the next 5 weekends. I’ll surely be too tired, etc, etc.
Our roadworks are progressing. After stripping along where cars park and a few other patches on Sat, this morn the laying machine was operating on our side. I had to go to bank to pay credit card & a wee bit of shopping, so I waited until they cleared out of the way. I came home to find access road after access road labelled "Closed Detour". I kept driving around. At the 4th such sign I drove around it. I had meat in the car and I didn’t fancy a long walk with the state my knees are in at present. Drove past workmen sitting around or lunching or something. Arrived home to find a note in letterbox about the disruption today. So great we got the warning late. Actually it is weird - they left the centre of the road, but scraped away next to the gutter, removing the underlying stones and sand. Then just laid the bitumen straight on top of the centre & edges. What about foundations on the edge?
Almost 2 pm. Lunch/Smoko must be over. The bitumen layer is progressing on other side of road. I notice the task takes one driver + one sweeper-out-of-the-gutter +3 lookouts standing around.
Evening all: Glorious day here, though a bit cool. Went for long walk around Lake Los Carneros this morning. Saws lots of birds (no binocs - typical) and people walking their dogs after days and days of rain, then came home and had some wonderful blueberry and cranberry/raspberry scones (with clotted cream yet!) in the garden before I pulled some weeds. They were short of help at the whale count, so tootled off there for a couple of hours, but didn't see any whales; then home for more yard work and a nice easy dinner.
Lindybird: How sweet that you're planning future vacations around Buzz. Is he playing you up at all since you returned? Plum pie? Yum! Geez Louise - that business with your friend and "Stella" is just awful - for everyone involved. You're so right about valuing every day (every hour, every minute).
Wendy: Welcome back - and traveling through time zones too. :-) Are you car-lagged?
Sheila: Sounds like you had a lovely day watching all the visitors to your garden. What a hoot (or honk) that a goose has laid claim to the Rutland nest. What on earth will happen to her egg when the "owners" show up? Maybe Alan can send IR in on a rescue mission.
OG: Good luck with the photo competition; hope the prize is something nifty.
Jay-Me: I'm sure Tiger will have the info on contenders for Lady's nest at LOTL (or maybe after all the years she's been there, word got around and they gave up!).
dibnlib: Oh how awful to be unable to sleep and then see the clock go back an hour - insult to injury.
Diane: LOTL 2 a bit erratic in terms of loading/not loading (can't get cam 1 either). Keep hoping Lady will show up really early in the morning while I'm still up. Thanks very much for the link to JenW's post; I just responded.
Djoan/Diane: Wonder how the owl fracas will end; doesn't sound pretty!
Alicat: Hope the cleaning frenzy helped just a bit. You are definitely not daft - I actually had a little cry myself when I heard about Casper.
AQ: It doesn't pay to wonder how the authorities spend our tax money!
Off to bed in a bit; rubbishy spy thing on telly - a remake of something that was so much better the first time around. Why do they bother? Have a good Monday all. Let's hope Odin gets back soon and would so like to think Lady will be back too.
Huh. EJ has just shown up at the nest.....
I just looked in upon the Barn Owl cam. Back view of a white bird making the most horrible noises. Sounds like it is in pain. What is the normal call of a barn owl? My owl knowledge consists ot ToowhitToowho.
Hi AQ. From the way that owl is hunching herself, I can't help wondering if she could be egg bound. Of course, it could just be that she is telling the world that she is ready to mate, because she wants to lay eggs! It really is a horrible sounding noise though, isn't it?
Smiles, Jan.
Hi Wattle. Thanks for that. Diane was concerned yesterday at their behaviour (see previous page) and that set me wondering whether something was wrong.
Hi, folks.
The following quote is from the 19 April 2010 Barn Owl Trust Diary:
"The average date for the first egg based on BOT data from 1998 to 2006 is the 17th April..."
So it's unlikely, but not impossible, that the female owl is egg-bound. I wondered about that myself, Wattle. She laid her first egg last year on the 24th of April. But then the BOT staff became concerned on 26th April 2010 and said this:
"we've noticed that the female seems to be spending a worrying amount of time not incubating the egg and this may be because she's underweight. Due to the unusually late spring (dry and cold), it's highly likely that Barn Owls will not be having a good breeding season and this may result in the nest being deserted. So much depends on how much prey is delivered over the next few weeks."
Then the male stepped up his prey deliveries to her and they did raise young last year.
At this stage, the females are very dependent on the males to provide them with food if they are to have a successful breeding season. I don't see any caches of food in the box now, and the number of pellets looks sparse to me (Joan?). I know the females break them up and use them in the scrape, but I seem to remember more material in the box at this point last year. ???
Also, unlike ospreys, barn owls are often very affectionate and intimate with each other during the mating season -- lots of cuddling, bill-touching, and preening each other. I haven't watched a lot this season, but this pair doesn't seem very bonded to me. (Joan, do you think so?)
Owls are very vocal creatures, and I know from my own garden that they can make some phenomenally strange sounds, especially during mating time. But this owl seems to me to be in distress of some kind. She's either hungry or ill, I think. Maybe she's just showing the male her displeasure about the lack of food deliveries. Anyway, that's my two cents. I hope she will be okay. I care about them.
Edit: I just read through the diary, and apparently this female has been very vocal since she arrived.
Here's the link for the BOT barn owl diary: http://www.barnowltrust.org.uk/infopage.html?Id=270