Barn Owl Cam

[Adrienna]

This is a link to a live video stream of a female barn own and her eggs that are expected to hatch soon, if any of you are interested in this type of thing. Enjoy!

http://www.ustream.tv/theowlbox#more

[Doomsayer]

how do they taste?

[Adrienna]

No idea how they taste, but probably not very good, considering what they eat. There was a nice shot of the mother owl gulping down a string of rodent organs and intestines last night.

[Guljit]

There was a nice shot of the mother owl gulping down a string of rodent organs and intestines last night.

Only Adrie would describe rodent disembowelment as "nice" =)

Although I saw a great horned owl the other day, the are pretty awesome birds.

And then I yelled at it for not giving me MOTW.

[Grihm]

I'll have to check this out later. At night. When the bird is doing something more exciting than sleeping on the eggs.

[Adrienna]

I went to sleep early last night, but Rich stayed up later. I usually leave my laptop going to charge my phone at night, and last night I didn't close the owl cam window. Rich said he had to turn it off because she was making so much noise.

And yes Guljit, I think they are awesome, especially when they eat! We get these at Project Wildlife, and they are just amazing animals. Watch her when she stands up. Her legs are really powerful and her talons will rip through your flesh like nobody's business.

I love owls!

[Ishnu]

harry potter taught me that these make very good pets

But i saw this blog and thought of you!
http://green.yahoo.com/blog/guest_blogg ... nimal.html

[Guljit]

harry potter taught me that these make very good pets

But i saw this blog and thought of you!
http://green.yahoo.com/blog/guest_blogg ... nimal.html

o_O

I'd also read about that recently and it seemed exactly like Adrie's kind of thing; I was about to mention it here but thought it was off-topic . . .
GET OUT OF MY HEAD ISHNU!

[Adrienna]

Wow, thanks for the link, that thing is really neat! I'll have to ask my marine ecology professor about it.

As for the owls as pets thing, you would be amazed at how many people ask on forums like yahoo if they can keep an owl as a pet. I found a website that talks about why you would never want to do that. People just don't get what sort of maintenance is involved.

Here's a quote and the link is posted below:

2. Feathers, pellets, and poop! Owls molt thousands of feathers every year, and they wind up everywhere (including the furnace filter in Karla's house.) Owls throw up pellets of fur and bones wherever they happen to be at the time. And poop happens. A lot. In addition to "regular" poop (like most birds), owls also empty out the ceca at the end of their intestines about once a day. This discharge is the consistency of chocolate pudding, but smells as bad as the nastiest thing you can imagine. And it stains something awful. Keeping owls involves non-stop cleaning.

1. FOOD. You can't just go down to the local grocery store and buy Owl Chow. Owls are strict carnivores and require diets of whole animals for proper health. For Alice, that translates into her own chest freezer stocked with pocket gophers, rats, rabbits, and mice. Each day Karla thaws an animal for her, removes the organs Alice won't eat, and serves it up for Alice. Leftovers from the previous day must be located and removed, as owls like to cache (or hide) leftover food for later. If you're not prepared to thaw and cut up dead animals every night of your life for 10 years or more, you aren't up for having an owl.

http://www.festivalofowls.com/owlsaspets.htm

In case you were wondering what ceca are, birds have a pair of ceca that are attached at the junction of the small and large intestine. They are like special digestion chambers where food is stored and undergoes further digestion by bacteria. So you can imagine how nasty that would be.

[Grihm]

Looks like some hatching activity this morning. I checked it about five mins ago and Carlos popped in the stream and gave a little update. Neat stuff.

[Guljit]

Adrie, an issue requiring your attention.
I stumbled on this while checking the blue tracker.
http://news.discovery.com/animals/creepy-sea-creature-crustacean-giant-isopod.html

Questions:
1. When will these things invade us?
2. Will they invade us before or after the humboldt squids?

[Prybutok]

He was waiting for 5 more of his buddies so he could rush your base.

[Minxie]

Although I saw a great horned owl the other day, the are pretty awesome birds.

And then I yelled at it for not giving me MOTW.

LAWL.

[Adrienna]

BUMP!

The owlets are soooooo big now!

[Adrienna]

We probably don't have much longer to look at these guys. They have their adult plumage and are losing their down. They should be fledging soon.