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 =========================================================