It Happened - We Have A Baby Owl 🦉

I interrupt today's regularly scheduled post for this emergency post about nocturnal additions. The biggest owl surprise of all.

On Monday morning, Canada Day, I looked out my kitchen window directly, alarmingly, into the eyes of something you should never look right in the eyes; a Beanie Baby.

And there we stood, frozen. I on one side of the window glass, they on the other. Stunned owl, meet stunned Karen.

We're probably all thinking the same thing - that a Baby Owl is obviously going to be named Bowel, but I'm not naming this one anything. At least not yet.

This is an excitement post not an excellence post. Bad photos, 1 good video, a bad video and some less-than top shelf quality photos. But a bad video of an owlet is more entertaining than a good photo of a colonoscopy. That was a Bowel joke.

Oh god, no, I cannot name this little puffball Bowel. Yet there it is - in my head as its name.

There was one point I was worried the baby, which was not very baby-sized, probably on par with a second season Full House Olsen twin, was assessing whether my nose was a mouse.

It occurred when I took a quick video from the backyard.

I assume his (her?) parent brought him (her?) to my backyard after a long discussion about how the woman, the dog and the electric wood splitter are nothing to lose any feathers over.

I'm back on owl watch which means I'm going to need a couple of hours to build my own nest outside. I'll need snacks, comfy pillows, a couple of cameras, blankets and a helmet. All your basic summertime gear.

Midway through the day the baby disappeared. I have no idea if it made its way into the bottom of the owl box or had run away from home for a few hours.

By 9:00 p.m. the baby was back and the parent was gone. Baby owl spent the next 15 minutes hopping from branches to the owl box, figuring out how to turn around and keep its wings from getting trapped in the box.

It hopped from branch to branch, to another tree in my yard to the roof of my potting shed. All its movements are just a little bit shy of elegant.

Based on my calculations using the age Eastern Screech owls learn to fly divided by the cost of a Beanie Baby I'd say this owlet is probably somewhere around 9-10 weeks old.

Since that night I haven't seen the baby again, but the parent, who may or may not be Mr. Snacks has been here every day. The red owl disappeared the day after I posted about their reappearance (as is often the case when I post about owls so don't expect to ever see Bowel again).

I'll keep you updated from my nest.