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This spring I got to spend some quality time in our cemetery. There is an old elm tree in this cemetery that has hosted a family of Great Horned Owls every year for the last 27 years. The nest itself is in a crotch of the tree formed by three great trunks that thrust upward forming a pocket where the nest is placed about twenty feet off the ground and at first glance looks to be the most unlikely of places for a nest. The tree is also located right at the junction of several of the cemetery roads which is one of the most traveled parts of the cemetery. This doesn’t seem to bother the owl parents, I guess after 27 years you’d move if it did. It could be they got a really good deal on their lease and so, why change.

Each year the parents produce from one to three owlets and this year there were two. Some of the very early observers of the nest thought they saw a third but if so it didn’t make it. The female lays her eggs a few days apart so that as the owlets develop they are different sizes and the larger one gets to leave the nest first. They don’t go far however, primarily because they can’t really fly yet and still need to be fed.

One of the traits that became apparent with the siblings was that after the largest left the nest and the smaller one was alone they seemed to really miss each other, calling back and forth constantly and when the youngest and smallest finally got out of the nest the first thing that happened was a huge family reunion with lots of snuggling, feather arranging, bill clacking and affection. There were lots of oooohs and ahhhhs from the watchers below. It seems we are never too far from our Disney upbringing.

Prior to their leaving the nest there were lots of opportunities to photograph the adult and the two chicks but that changed as soon as they were out of the nest. They could now climb up into the branches where newly sprouted leaves partially concealed them and mom didn’t come back to the tree until much later in the day when it was too dark to shoot. So it was kind of bittersweet when they grew to this stage. The image above was the last taken of the smallest owlet. I had stayed later than usual because I had the feeling I wouldn’t be seeing them again or if I did I wouldn’t have the opportunities to photograph them that I had earlier and she made it worthwhile for me, posing, giving me lots of attitude and generally looking very determined. She had been in this nest since late February and it was time to get out. It seems to prove that for every ending there is a beginning. Like Mr. Rodgers used to say “and that’s alright”.