Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 11:25:12 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Kerry Stone Organization: American Geophysical Union Subject: One more item - screech owl MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hello again: I forgot to share the most exciting news of my weekend. I have a screech owl near my house. I've been watching it for almost two years on and off. About three weeks ago, I watched as a mixed flock of chickadees, titmice, and crows mob the screech owl - who was quietly roosting in his hole - with just his head sticking out. The next day and for three weeks after that I didn't see the owl. I checked all the holes, I know of, in the area and nothing. I started giving up hope. I figured 1) the bird(s) either moved on 2) Died or 3) They were sitting on eggs. I took my dog for a walk this morning and there was the SCREECH dutifully perched in his hole glaring out. I ran home and checked the yellow book. The egg date for the screech owl is around March 8th. Incubation time is between 21-28 days. So I figured the owl has been sitting low in the hole on the eggs. So I'm also assuming these eggs have now hatched. So question: the book says the fledge at 30-32 days. Does that mean from the egg date or the hatch date? Corny I know, but I'm so happy to see my dawn and dusk (that's when I see the screech) friend is okay. Any additional information, or correction, is welcomed. Best wishes, Kerry Stone --------------- Takoma Park, MD kstone@agu.org --------------- ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================