Linden family gives a hoot
Since then the Lindsay family has had an opportunity many don't, and that is to witness a young owl family coming together and thanks to a webcam monitoring the owl box, they have now seen things that would make others jealous.
Linden’s Lindsay family has been lucky enough to now share their yard with a family of five spotted eagle owls. According to Maggie Lindsay, a male owl, named Harry, first checked into the owl box the evening after EcoSolutions had done their annual servicing of the box with the female, named Meghan, joining him a day later.
Lindsay said, “We discovered on 17 October that Harry and Meghan have three healthy owlets approximately two weeks old. Meghan had eaten the egg shells for their calcium and remained in the box caves during the day and only left at sunset to preen herself and hunt.”
Since then the Lindsay family has had an opportunity many don’t, and that is to witness a young owl family coming together and thanks to a webcam monitoring the owl box, they have now seen things that would make others jealous.
At around 5pm each day, Harry would start his daily hooting and shortly after both Harry and Meghan would fly out into the sunset to secure a meal for their young. The owlets Archie, Kiki and Hedwig would be fed in turns as mommy and daddy would return from their travels with food. Maggie shared, “We experienced one owlet swallow an entire mouse whole. There is no sibling fighting over food either.”
The Lindsays were also able to notice that since the owlets turned around two weeks old, Meghan sits at the top of the Celtis Africana tree during the day and would do her best to keep camouflaged.
Harry, on the other hand, would have a designated branch for the day where he would also hide out but the other birds around him made it easy for the Lindsays to locate him. Maggie explained, “We generally follow the sound of the birds tweeting and hissing to find him. Poor Harry has to put up with a lot of flack each day but he always remains chilled out.”
Unlike the panicking birds, members of the Lindsay household would greet the owls with the handsome Harry blinking towards them in response. The Lindsays are over the moon at the prospect that their owl box could become a home for Harry and Meghan for the next 10 years. Maggie concluded, “We hope this will happen as it is a wonderful experience for us and the grandchildren to watch. We are becoming owl-obsessed along with our family, friends and neighbours.”
