Tonight’s owl watching only lasted ten minutes, but it revealed that the female may have already begun to lay and incubate her eggs.  She only came out of the cavity when she heard the male’s calls, quickly copulated with him and after a few minutes of calling returned to the cavity all within ten minutes.

These dates seem to match, almost exactly, the schedule from last year.

The night started with our finding the female’s current roosting cavity, which was a real breakthrough for us. 

The male flew into view and she quickly left her cavity to join him.  The two owls perched near each other, and then the male flew off into the Loch.  The female stayed in two perches calling softly.  We didn’t see the male return. The temperature was dropping, so we left before she flew off.

It looks like this pair is starting to be a real couple.  The female showed the male where to hunt tonight and he ended up catching a mouse.  It also looks like she was given the treat.

No more endless calling by her, but a nice duet, copulation and a quick snack.  It’s looking like they’re finally getting in sync with each other.

We realized while leaving the park, that our male needs a nickname.  We’ve settled on Mars for the male to go with Trident for the female.

It was a nice night with the male learning to answer back to the calls of the female.  They copulated two or three times.  The female covered a large area of the Loch going across the stream and then flying back.

All was going well, except the male has hasn’t learned that he’s supposed to be more attentive later in the evening.  The female called for over an hour without his returning.  Our young male needs to learn to be a better boyfriend!

Both owls were vocal this evening, with the male singing his trill and the female her whinny.  They copulated twice, so spring can’t be that far away.

The Hovarth family was watching the owls this evening.  They were thrilled to see one of their owls doing so well back in the wild.  When they release most of their birds, they end up flying off never to be seen again, so this was a special experience for them.

I learned that our red male had hit a car, and ended up caught on the car’s windshield wiper before being brought to the Hovarths.

The first four photographs are of the male, and the rest are of the female.

We searched for their roosting locations this evening without success, but did gain some clues about their locations.  The male arrived from the level of the bypass road coming in from near the police post.  The female seemed to be on the path about 50 feet from the rustic bridge.

The two of them copulated and the male took off.  The female then called for a long period of time on the path that goes east from under Glen Span Arch.  In previous years, the her old mate would have brought her a treat after copulation.  I wonder if her new, younger mate doesn’t know what’s expected of him?

Below are pictures of the female, who we’ve nicknamed Trident because of the three think lines that radiate backwards from her beak on her forehead.