[tn-bird] Witness Eastern Screech Owls Mating

While walking late yesterday evening at Adair Park in Fountain
City, Leigh spotted an Eastern Screech Owl (male, red morph) in
the hole of a Sycamore tree at the northwest side of the trail
near the creek. It gave it's territorial call (& got an answer
from a group of nearby cedar trees) before we watched it come
out of the hole around 7 pm. It flew across the trail to another
wooded section near the creek, & we saw the female fly to the
same area from a nearby cedar tree.  From the trail, we luckily
found an opening in the woods where we saw the female sitting on
a tree branch preening herself. About 2 minutes later, the male
flew & hovered directly behind the female for about 5 seconds.
He bit the back of her neck just before flying away. The female
flew off a couple minutes later.

We think this is the same pair we saw at Adair Park last year
(Leigh aptly called them Morph & Mindy). From April 20- 29,
2001, we saw them mate twice. The female nested in a larger hole
of the referenced Sycamore tree, just below the hole the male
inhabited. We last saw them on May 29, 2001.

There is some poetic justice here, in that I got Leigh a Screech
Owl birdhouse 2 Christmas's ago, & all we have seen in it are
squirrels & titmice.

If anyone needs more detailed directions, e-mail us.

Robert & Leigh Loveday
Knoxville, TN

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Movies - coverage of the 74th Academy Awards®
http://movies.yahoo.com/
=================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER=====================

The TN-Bird Net requires you to sign your messages with
first and last name, city (town) and state abbreviation.
-----------------------------------------------------
To post to this mailing list, simply send email to:
tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
----------------------------------------------------- 
To unsubscribe, send email to:
tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
     Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society
          web site at http://www.tnbirds.org
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
    TN-Bird Net Owner: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN
        jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx      (423) 764-3958
=========================================================

Other related posts: