owls mating in my backyard

Even though I live in Texas, it has been too cold to sit outside. This is the coldest and longest winter I can remember in Texas. I realize cold is a relative term and I don't envy anyone who lives on the East Coast and had to deal with so much snow these past few months. Although beautiful, it is too much for me to handle. Here is a picture of the most snow I remember at my house, just two weeks ago!  Sometimes I think I am thick skinned, but not when it comes to the weather. I love our winters and springs; I hate our summers. One of these years, I will close up the house on June 1st and return at the end of September. I will drive to a higher altitude and sit outside every evening, drinking my glass of red and loving the temperatures!  In Texas, I stay inside for months during the summer.

Anyway, back to the sex lives of screech owls. My house is located within spitting distance of downtown Austin, Texas. Once a nice sized town, greater Austin is close to 1 million residents and a big city. How fortunate to live so close to the action. My neighborhood is full of lovely old Live Oaks and my small yard has 2 - one front one back, each of which pretty much cover the respective yards.

So back to the sex lives of screech owls. This is probably the first night this year we have sat on our balcony, which has a view of downtown Austin and the state capitol. It is an amazing view, and we have these lovely trees all over the place. The owls have always been around but I had not heard them in a while. Our friend and neighbor, Victor Emanuel - famous as the world's most intrepid bird tour guide, told me last week he had seen a nest for a Great Horned Owl in the nightborhood. He said you will not see screech owls when the big guys are around and I realized I had not heard any of our local screechers in weeks. This might be because we have been indoors due to cold or because the big guys are hunting.

Tonight we had dinner on the balcony. Just as the sun went down I saw a Red-shouldered Hawk fly past us. A little bit later something flew right in front of me, small like a screech owl but didn't see it. Minutes later we saw an owl fly to a branch above us. Then he flitted and flew just above the roof of our house. The next second we saw him fly to a branch about 15 feet away, flap his wings,  mate with a female, and fly off. She sat on her branch for quite a while and we heard her little whinny. It was amazing.

 http://www.owlpages.com/sounds/Megascops-asio-1.mp3

Owl box goes up this weekend, even if I have to shimmy up the Live Oak!  

order your owl shack from Cliff at http://owlshack.com/index.html