A busy night on the owl nest
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ธ.ค. 2020
- It began with the arrival of a smallish male great horned owl who was very closely followed by a big female. We know the male is a “he” because of his low-pitched hooting, and we know the female is a “she” because her hoot was higher pitched. Females are about 50% bigger than males, but this guy seems a lot smaller his pursuer. He looks quite alarmed to be sharing his space with someone twice his size so we’re assuming they weren’t close friends. He took off in a hurry and Mrs Owl stayed for a couple more hoots and then followed him.
A couple of hours later two raccoons - probably siblings - arrived in the nest. They spent an hour playing and scuffling and looking at the view (which is impressive - the nest is 30 ft up in a live oak tree). Raccoons are utterly fearless climbers and very strong, but it’s nerve-wracking to watch them fooling around at such a great height; a fall would be deadly.
Lately we’ve been seeing raccoons in the owl nest almost every night. We shudder to think what might happen if a great horned owl were to land while a raccoon is up there taking a nap. It would be a shock for all concerned.
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#owlnest #owlvideo #texaswildlife #backyardwildlife
I love owls ! I went outside tonight around 10:30 pm and saw some owls in a nest in a tree. I found them with my flashlight. So cool. I'm part Cherokee and they are my Spirit Animal.
We have seen only a few great horned owls here in the past couple of years. It's very sad - we love to have them around.
These are wonderful! Thanks for all the effort you put in to tell us the story.
Thank you! We love our critters and we really get a kick out of sharing their stories. Take a look at our website for more: texasbackyardwildlife.com/
Those owls sure have a lot going on at night! 💞
sweet pets and animals I have, take a look...
I really enjoyed watching the interaction between both the Owls and the young Raccoons, as well as your commentary! Thx!
Nice to hear from you! Thank you for letting us know.
New subscriber here. Great video quality and I absolutely love how your narration!!
Thank you very much, Laura!
And this video and also the Owl evicting the raccoon video... There's a glowing eye watching in the middle of the screen from a far.
It's actually a radio tower with a light on it - or a couple of lights.
We sure could use more videos like this one. It’s so calming to watch nature with all the wild politician creatures these days. Thank you!
By comparison, the critters seem even more admirable than usual at the moment, don't they?
Fantastic photography.... thank you so much for sharing.
Thank you, Sandra!
I've watched squirrels and raccoons jump out of 25 foot tall trees and walk off like nothing happened.
This raccoon was lucky enough to have time to climb down. A 25ft drop is risky unless there's lots of soft undergrowth beneath you.
Thanks this was very interesting!
Thanks, great job💯👌🏾
My favorite birds
Awesome video. ❤️
I am new to this channel and I enjoy it. I am going to put an owl box in my backyard in a few weeks, I am excited to see who will visit it. I grew up in the city but now live 15 minutes from downtown Boston and find this very cool!
Hi Jacqui - Nice to hear from you. We have some screech owl boxes in our yard and usually one screech owl over-winters with us. We have a camera in the box and it's fun to watch him (we think it's a male because he has never laid an egg and he disappears every spring; we assume it's to help his mate bring up chicks). We have some screech owl videos here: texasbackyardwildlife.com/screech-owls/
Beautiful 😍
Thank you, Candy. We have been hoping they'll come back this year but so far no luck - aside from occasional sightings of a male owl perching in a big live oak by the creek.
Those racoons are very likely the reason the owls won't nest there. Cute though.
Good point. That may be true. We'll isolate the tree earlier next year so the owls don't ever see them.
Are those “Great Horned” owls? Cool video - thanx!
Yes, Thomas, they are.
New subscriber, love the amazing videos... I also love owls. I wonder whether the frequent appearance of raccoons prevent the owls from having eggs/chicks in that nest. Thank you!
You're the second person to ask that and it's good point. We have the tree set up so we can quickly make it unclimbable to protect any nesting birds, but the fact that owls had seen a raccoon up there while they were trying to decide where to nest might have been a problem. We're going to isolate it before the owls arrive this year and see if that changes anything.
hooties
Wow she's big... maybe she doesn't nest there because the racoons are to comfy with the site..
I believe that could be the case too. Probably think it's too dangerous to have owlets cuz the nest is too widely known with the raccoons.
Those birds are smart, they know not to nest there because of all those other animals coming through the nest like those raccoons right there that will probably eat and kill all the baby birds
We only come out @ night!
There’s no way owl babies are
Going to survive in that nest.
If the owls actually nest there, we can totally isolate the tree and we have banded it already so the trunk actually isn't climbable. They would be quite safe from raccoons, etc.
@@TexasBackyardWildlife do the birds nnow your going to band the tree? Nooo they just know other animals come to that nest & not to nest there
Can you tell me the general area this nest is located?
We built it ourselves and it's 30 ft up in a live oak tree in our backyard in southwest Austin.
is that nest as light as we see it or its recorded with night vision camera?
Hi Arsan - I responded to this question in some detail in your other comment, but in case you miss it, the camera uses infrared lights - it's night-vision. By using cameras with infrared lights we get to spy on the critters 24 hours a day.
They probably do not lay eggs there because the site is very open, and the youngs can be easily spotted and killed by any intruder.
You may be right. Thank you for your comment. The site is indeed very open.
Maybe they lay their eggs in a raccoon free nest.
Maybe true. We can isolate the tree so raccoons can't climb it in a matter of minutes if the owls nest there, but other people have pointed out that if the owls see raccoons up on the nesting platform they may not want to give it a try. We're going to isolate the tree this year before the owls arrive.
"siblings to each other ]sic]"? The sheer stupidity of that phrase is breathtaking.
sweet pets and animals I have, take a look...
True. It's redundant. We are far from perfect. Good to know how easy it is to take your breath away.
@@TexasBackyardWildlife You're proud of your stupidity, aren't you?
@@autodidact2499 Ma'am you are acting like a jackass or in other words a Democrat.
Wait. Why is that stupid? I don't understand, can you explain to me?