Hi birders: The Eastern Screech-owls are beginning their breeding season in the region and the Great Horned Owls have been incubating eggs for one or two weeks. Bert Hale and I walked fields and wetlands along the South Fork of the Holston River (TN) today, checking Wood Duck boxes for screech-owls setting up spring housekeeping. Bert has a pair of red screech-owls, each roosting in separate owl boxes in his backyard near Bluff City. We're just nine days from Valentines Day :-) They are drawing very near to a March egg laying date at his house. He's had screech-owls nesting in his boxes for more than 30 years. Owls are not knew to Bert & Loraine. They've had several Great Horned Owl nests in the woods across the road from their home. They've walked miles in those woods to find the nest, year after year. Their son climbed to them and the young were banded -- sometimes being recovered dead in Virginia as much as 11 and 12 years later. The last full moon, just days ago, I enjoyed the long serenade of a Great Horned Owl hooting in my backyard, here in the middle of Bristol. They've been here for years. One night, both the male and female sat on my roof and hooted and one even walked along the gutter on the roof of my front porch while I sat in a rocking chair. One year, Ken Hale and I found a nest in a tall white pine just yards behind my house. He climbed to the nest and photographed the two, nearly-round, white eggs. Today, Bert and I came up on Reece Jamerson at the Weir Dam below South Holston Dam. Waterfowl is in slim pickings as we had found along the river and Reece had found at the weir. We birded on to Musick's Campgrounds but it was nearly void of anything -- 20+ Ring-billed Gulls at the best. Still no screech-owls seen in the two boxes that Larry McDaniel put up at Musick's six years ago or so. They've nested there and Richard Lewis has banded young from the nest. Rick Knight, Jeff Larsen, Andy Jones and myself caught and banded an adult screech-owl from one of those boxes last January. There's an owl coming to your backyard. I bet! Wallace Coffey Bristol ************************************************* BRISTOL BIRDS NET LIST This is a regional birding list sponsored by the Bristol Bird Club to facilitate communications between birders and bird clubs of Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee. It serves the Russell County Bird Club, Herndon Chapter TOS, Greeneville TOS Chapter, Blue Ridge Birders Club, Butternut Nature Club, Buchanan County Bird Club, Bristol Bird Club, Clinch Valley Bird Club and Cumberland Nature Club. -------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed to Bristol-Birds. To post to this mailing list, simply send an email to: bristol-birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe, send an email to bristol-birds-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the one word 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. -------------------------------------------------- Wallace Coffey, Moderator jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx (423)764-3958