Maybe She Missed Me???

Well, I'm back from my visit to The Owl Foundation, and Alice managed to behave herself. She had a good appetite, but didn't leave her room much at all (other than one foray downstairs in the middle of the night while my husband was at work. It's easy to tell when she's been downstairs...she ALWAYS knocks over a little fake owl on the entertainment center and takes the throw blanket off my husband's rocking chair.)

When I got home, I went up to Alice's room almost right away. She took one look at me and flew straight to her nest and started making her soft little grunting sounds as she walked around and scratched in it. Then we hooted some together, but I'm sure she wanted to hoot for a lot longer than I did--I was in need of some supper, but when I left, she actually did one more hoot when I was out of sight. Normally she stops hooting as soon as she can't see me anymore.

Yesterday evening she did some of her odd begging calls, which I'm pretty sure are meant to get my attention (this usually works.) And last night at 11:45 PM she did some good, loud "wac-wac" calls. Normally they come out more as a "hmwah, hmwah" (less volume and less accented), but it seems like when she knows she needs to wake me up with her calls they turn into the full "wac-wacs." To make these sounds, Alice starts with her beak closed, and quickly opens it up as she makes the sound. (This is unlike a hoot, which is given with her beak closed.) Generally, a closed beak gives more of the "ooo" sounds and an open beak gives the "aaa" sounds.

And yes, I did get up when she did her "wac-wacs", but she stopped the second she heard me moving around. She knows how to get what she wants.