The last two nights, I’ve spent a few hours each night at the cavity.  I must have missed the female’s break last night, but saw it tonight.  Tonight, she only left the nest for two minutes to defecate.  I did hear her both nights calling softly from the cavity.

No sign of the male.

Tonight the fly out was at 6:30.  The fly out time seems to be getting later.  The delay, which seemed at first to be connected to the quieting of the nearby squirrels, may be due to some other factor.

In Gehlbach’s The Eastern Screech Owl he observed that initial calls were very late during courting, and became progressively early as incubation and nesting occurred.  It will be interesting to see what the fly out dates are over the next few weeks.

There was debris in the mouth of the cavity tonight.  It was unclear if it was feathers from the owls or prey.

The female stayed out for about ten minutes before returning to the nest.

Tonight, the female came out of the cavity and was greeted by the male at the normal time.  The spent a few mintues together in the triangle above the bypass road. She returned to the nest and he went off into The Loch area.

We went down to The Loch area to look for him, without success, and returned to the cavity.  When we arrived both owls were out in the open, he soon took off and she went back inside. 

We could only guess as to what had happened while we were away.  It was unclear if food had been delivered.

Tonight, Dr. Robert “Birding Bob” DeCandido, Ph.D. came close to causing real harm to this possibly nesting pair of Eastern Screech-Owls.  He brought a tour of owl watchers into The Loch and played Screech-Owl vocalizations for over thirty minutes.

Just by luck, he was far enough away from the cavity not to draw the female off the nest.  He did however disturb the male, who has been coming to the nest at dusk, hunts and returns within minutes to feed and copulate with the female, who leaves her cavity for only a few minutes.

Tonight, the male did not arrive at the nest until after Dr. DeCandido had left the area. The male owl was tracking Dr. DeCandido from good distance staying at the height of the tree canopy.  Only after he saw Dr. DeCandido leave the area, did he come to the nest over an hour late at 6:20.

It’s harder for the male to hunt this late.  At dusk, both mice and sparrows are more active.  When he arrived the female, joined him almost immediately, expecting a meal.  The pair copulated, then while he began to hunt, she called loudly, as to say “I’m hungry”.  He tried various places, including a wood chip pile but was unsuccessful.  He flew south to other hunting grounds.

The female returned to the cavity.  She then called softly for food for half an hour.  I wanted to wait until he returned to make sure everything was fine, but had to leave to meet a friend for dinner.

I really don’t understand why Dr. DeCandido would be still be leading tours this late in the year.  He’s familiar with this female’s history of nesting too early.  As a scientist he can clearly do the math and knows not to lead tours after January 1st. 

I’m not sure what to do about his tours. 

If I do nothing, there’s a good chance he won’t find the cavity. 

If I do something proactive, I’ll have to tip my hand that there’s a nesting owl pair.  This might lead to more intense and direct harassment.

Who thought owl watching would be so difficult?

Tonight, the male arrived, trilled a few times and then took off as normal to the south around 5:30 p.m.  The female only came out of the cavity for a few minutes
around 7 p.m.  (On the last few nights, the female has left the
nest when the male has arrived with food, the pair has copulated and she has quickly returned to the nest.)

One of the odd things about the reintroduced Central Park owls is how early they have nested.  We’ve had fledglings in mid-March in previous years.  (The early nests may be simply an issue with the reintroduced owls needing a few generations to get their timing right or some more serious environmental issue with the park.)

A female Eastern Screech-Owls typically spends about six days resting before laying eggs, three to six days laying eggs, thirty days after the first egg is laid to incubate, and their offspring take between twenty-four and thirty-two days to fledge.

So the previous early nesting history of this female and her current behavior I would bet she’s nesting now.

Tonight the male appeared, and called to the female.  She made a brief call, and he flew off into the triangle above the bypass road.  He returned with a sparrow, and she flew down to him.  They exchanged the sparrow, copulated, and he flew off south across the North Meadow.

She then ate the sparrow, giving us quite a show.