Saturday, February 23, 2013

Alice is a free bird!


Thirty-three days.  That's how long Great Horned Owls normally sit on their eggs before they hatch.  That's a looooong time to spend 23.5 hours a day in the exact same spot, usually staring at the wall.  But then again, that's probably why an incubating female goes into "zone-out" mode when sitting.

Alice's 33 days were up yesterday, so we planned to remove her eggs when she was on break.  I heard her at about 6:30 AM, but she had just gotten back on her eggs.  Missed.  Hein cleaned her room in the afternoon, however, and she got off her eggs and went out into her patio for a quick break.  Hein snatched her eggs when she was out.

Oddly enough, Alice always settles back onto her nest after the egg-napping like absolutely nothing has happened. She even looks down where the eggs should be.  Then she starts incubating nothing.

As usual, just over an hour after the eggs were removed she started hooting.  She figured it out.  Then she was off her nest, on her nest, back and forth.  She'll do this for a couple of days until she mostly stops sitting on her nest and just gets on with her life.  For her it seems to come as kind of a relief from the prison of incubation.  (I don't remove her eggs early, though, since it might cause her to lay again.)

Hein is the designated egg blower, since he had a bird egg collection as a kid.  Above he's pictured poking holes in both ends of the egg with a needle.  Then he scrambles the innards with the needle, holds the egg over the bowl, and blows into one end while the runny stuff squirts out the other end into the bowl.

Oddly enough, the eggs never stink and seem totally fresh.  I always find that amazing.

Then Hein sucks water into the eggs, rinses it around and blows it out again.  When done, they're put into an egg carton to dry.


This year's eggs were perfectly matched, the first time yet.  Here's how they've come out so far:

2009: one small egg
2010: one huge egg
2011: one perfect egg
2012: one perfect egg and one small "afterthought" egg
2013 two perfect!

Maybe she'll gear up for three next year, like Iris this year.....
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10 comments:

  1. talktomeSaturday, February 23, 2013 at 7:11:00 PM CST

    oooo that would be eggciting! Nice eggs, and good incubating job, Alice!

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  2. AnonymousSaturday, February 23, 2013 at 7:51:00 PM CST

    i must have missed something. if she's a captive bird how does she get pregnant. and why incubate eggs that are not viable? i'm confused. jillb

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  3. Karla (Kinstler) BloemSaturday, February 23, 2013 at 8:31:00 PM CST

    The mental stimulation of thinking I'm her mate coupled with the natural change in hormones allows her to lay infertile eggs.

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    1. AnonymousSunday, February 24, 2013 at 9:13:00 AM CST

      ohhhhh. that makes sense. i had no idea that was a possibility. thanks for educating me! jillb

      Delete
  4. daoliverSaturday, March 2, 2013 at 9:55:00 PM CST

    About 9:35 PM Sat., Rusty brought food to the nest and walking over to Iris, he seemed to exhale several times very hard and stressed. Is this something intentional or is he having some trouble breathing? I've noticed this a couple other times recently too.

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    1. Karla (Kinstler) BloemSunday, March 3, 2013 at 7:07:00 AM CST

      daoliver, thanks for posting this, as I haven't been able to watch because I've been busy with the Festival. What you heard was just Iris hissing at Rusty when he delivered the food, so nothing is amiss. I'm glad I was able to check, because you never know!

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  5. BobSunday, March 10, 2013 at 8:31:00 AM CDT

    For the first time this year my female GHO here in Alberta seems to have lined her nest with down-feathers. I don't know if they are her own or come from some prey bird that the male brought in for her to eat. It wasn't there last week. Only appeared this week after we had a major snow storm and cold spell. Have you ever seen this before. I haven't. You can see a pic of it here http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobandthebirds/8544018319/in/photostream/lightbox/

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    1. Karla (Kinstler) BloemSunday, March 10, 2013 at 8:57:00 AM CDT

      These downy feathers fall out when the female is developing her brood patch. Denver Holt from the Owl Research Institute suggests looking for downy feathers around a nest site to indicate that it is active, so this is a normal thing. Alice has a bunch of these in her nest every year, and Iris has them around her nest also.

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  6. BobSunday, March 10, 2013 at 10:46:00 AM CDT

    Thank you Karla. I had never noticed this before around the nests I have visited. I don't wear glasses but maybe I should get some, lol.

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  7. screwballTuesday, March 12, 2013 at 7:17:00 AM CDT

    Interesting little interaction just now (05:12 PDT on 12 Mar 2013)--Iris was off the nest but still on the nest platform, then Rusty came in, walked very deliberately around Iris (who was clucking all the while) and down into the nest bowl, at one point standing over the eggs, then back to the edge of the platform before taking off. Iris then went back to incubating. The video froze momentarily, so I'm not sure if Rusty actually settled down onto the eggs momentarily before leaving. Not sure if this is typical behavior for GHOs...

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