SNN (ScrollingNetworkNews) ✿ ✿ Our Mel and Sydney returned to their nesting box with plenty of bonding occurring..but after 2.5 months of Sydney in the box from Dec 2013 to mid Feb 2014, the lack of prey gifts from Mel ( perhaps due to the severe and historic drought underway in California)and they have forgone the nesting process this year as many other raptors ✿ Compared to other owls of similar size, the Barn Owl has a much higher metabolic rate, requiring relatively more food. Pound for pound, Barn Owls consume more rodents – often regarded as pests by humans – than possibly any other creature. ✿ We remind viewers that sometimes owlets may not survive - the parents will dispose of things in "The Owl Way" -viewer discretion is advised, this is nature and the "Owl way". ✿ ~ ✿ “Animals, like us, are living souls. They are not things. They are not objects. Neither are they human. Yet they mourn. They love. They dance. They suffer. They know the peaks and chasms of being.” ― Gary Kowalski, The Souls of Animals ✿ Each species is a masterpiece, a creation assembled with extreme care and genius." ~ E.O. Wilson

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Adventures with Mel and Syd

Mel arrived home 8:57pm singing,
               I'm late, I'm late,
For a very important date.
No time to say Hello, Goodbye.
I'm late, I'm late, I'm late.”” 

Feeling guilty for being so late, he brought his sweetie a gift 1st treat – gopher.
 Sydney forgave him, they bonded & he left 8:59 with a Cheshire grin.

She consumed the treat in 2 gulps.
Syd was in a gopher stupor after her treat
Leaving us to egg watch her eggies she exited for her FFN 9:47-9:51pm
 Mel returned with a 2nd treat, a small dormouse. As he tried to gift her with it, she turned her back to him rasping as if to tell him she was still full from his last gift.
 Silly Sydney thought about storing it in the pantry, caring it from side to side of the box unable to decide where to place it. Then she looked at her eggs and carried the treat over to them and almost placed them on top.
She then tucked it under her as if it were one of her eggs and gave her little shimmy shimmy and settled in as if she were brooding the treat. This was a to die for minute as a few of us watched her.
(See video below)


She then got up off the treat carrying the treat in her beak like a puppy,then laying it down, grabbed a feather from the shag, moving the shag around it, picked it up again then fell asleep with it in her beak for approx 20 minutes.


While chat was paused, Mel returned roughly 3:20am & tried to steal the treat possibly to re-gift it. She grabbed it back. He left 3:24, she swallowed it.

Sydney's deets were heard 5:05 placing an order for the March Hare but instead Mel returned with the 3rd treat 5:31 - gopher.

*See Sydney eat her breakfast from moderator Aj HERE