Owl

[lboudaus]

We have an owl in our tree in the front yard. The poor tree is all full of holes; however, an owl has decided to reside in one of the holes which makes me extremely happy. We had an owl family in our backyard tree a number of years ago...three babies. So, I'm extremely excited to have one again. Laura and John gave me an owl house for Christmas; but it is soooooo big, I think it's going to take several people to put it up. I think it may be for a bigger owl than is in the front. I'm not sure what kind of owl it is but it has ears. I think I may have seen a baby fly out tonight but himself thinks it was the original owl. I spotted it a couple of weeks ago. It's been sitting in the same place for days. It leaves at night but usually comes back during the day. Tonight I saw it sitting in a hole at the end of one of the branches. I hope there's babies and I'm pretty sure there are going to be since the adult is there so much. This is the happiest I've been in a long time. There's also a starling nest in the tree and I saw the baby a few days ago; however, it's a large baby. I think starlings are the ones who feed their young forever. The youngsters follow the parents around and wait to be fed. Personally, I think the babies should be able to feed themselves when their old enough to be hopping around after the parents. That's just my own personal observation. There is also a dove in a nest in the tree in the back, but it's on the side of the house. She's been sitting there for a pretty long time. I've felt sorry for her lately with all the rain. It doesn't look like a very sturdy nest and it's not very big but maybe doves only have one or two babies. Our bird houses on the house have babies. I sure hope they make it over the pool when they leave this year. It breaks my heart to find baby birds in the scuppers. I always have little funerals for them. The purple martin house has a sparrow nest in it. The top floor blew off when we had really strong winds a couple of weeks ago and I set the top back on but it's not real sturdy. The sparrow came back and seems to be taking care of the nest. We're going to have to revamp the whole birdhouse after this season. I have yet to have a purple martin move in. Starlings tried to move in this year but I removed their nests before eggs were laid. We have a blue pool float in back of the shed that has a rolled headrest and a sparrow built a nest in it and was sitting on it for a while. But one day I went out and she was gone and the eggs were gone so I guess something got them.

I guess that's about all I can remember right now. I've tried to find another "grandworm", but I haven't found any this year. They sure are cute.