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Northern Saw-whet Owls
Feeding
When we were taking still photos overnight, we got a hint of what goes on. When we starting taking video, we found amazing things. There were frequent visits to the nest by an adult owl, often so brief that we must have been missing some when we were taking photos every 6 seconds. A visit to the nest might have the owl pausing at the opening for less than a second and total time in frame as short as two seconds. As we got better and more frequent images, we could see that many of the visits were the adult dropping off mice for the owlets. During the peak of activity, we were seeing around seven mouse deliveries per night.
We can't see the full mouse, but below and to the right of the adult owl, there's a mouse tail that gets pulled into the nest as the adult leaves.
Here we have a delivery where at least two owlets are waiting and compete for the mouse. The victor puts on quite a show.
This mouse was consumed fresh upon delivery. Yikes!
It seems like maybe this mouse was a bit more than the owlet bargained for.
Seeing the mouse delivery and consumption was a surprise spectacle for filming from outside the nest. Our main goal was to catch an owlet fledging, taking its first flight out of the nest. Follow the link to see what we were able to capture.
Next Up: Fledging |
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