Alice the Great Horned Owl is a permanently injured owl who works at the Houston Nature Center in Houston, MN and lives with her handler, Karla Bloem. Rusty and Iris are Great Horned Owls that are both blind in their right eyes and cannot live in the wild. Rusty and Iris are breeding in captivity as part of Karla's vocal study on Great Horned Owls. All together they have led to the creation of an International Owl Center in Houston, MN and an International Festival of Owls.
Did this happen recently? Are they perhaps showing signs that they may try to lay a new egg (or two)?
ReplyDeleteThey still go to the nest, but I think things are cooling down.
ReplyDeleteSilly Rusty. You're not a girl.
ReplyDeleteInteresting exchange a little while ago--at 17:25 PDT, Iris had been at the nest platform for a while when Rusty arrived with food, hooting. He passed the food directly to Iris' beak. She took it, put it down, and then tried to either rub or clasp beaks with Rusty, who promptly took off. She stayed at the nest a while longer, picked up the food, looked like she was thinking about taking off, then she moved it to the front of the nest platform (bottom right corner of the monitor), and pulled at it a bit--she may have eaten some, as the camera stuttered right then. She finally left the nest with the food still sitting on the nest platform. There might have been copulation later--I heard whistling, but I'm not sure if it was them or the Decorah eagles in another window.
ReplyDeleteI take it we're approaching (if not past) the end of the normal egg laying window for GHOs? *sigh*......
Iris did this behavior last year at the end of breeding season too...reaching up to Rusty's bill repeatedly. Not sure if it's soliciting food or what...
ReplyDeleteYes, they did copulate, apparently successfully afterwards, but I think we're past any hope of egg laying. And the permit folks have let me know there is no legal process for me to acquire foster chicks for Rusty and Iris since I'm not a master level wildlife rehabilitator. So we'll have to wait for next year.