I’ve been watching a Great Horned Owl raise her babies since Valentine’s Day. On May 11 there was a huge fire at Lake Meredith that destroyed over 200 homes and buildings and damaged a hundred or so more. The bright spot of this disaster was that there were no deaths or even serious injuries, but there are a lot of people homeless because of it. I live several miles from the lake and so was completely unaffected by the fire except for the mild disappointment of not seeing the owlets leave the nest.
I was out the week before the fire and they had hopped from the nest onto nearby branches but that’s the last time I saw them. The area where the nest was located was spared from the fire but only barely-it got withing a 100 meters of the tree before it was contained. The entire southeast side of the lake was closed off for several days while hot spots were contained and by the time it opened back up we had left for our Missouri vacation. I hope they learned to fly before the fire.
I was out at the same area this morning and saw a red-tailed hawk building a nest, so now I’m excited about watching her raise her brood. I’ll keep you posted.
Photoavian 