When we first built the pond and waterfall in the backyard I thought it would be a lovely feature that would add to the backyard landscape, making it more interesting, allowing us to feel like we lived far away from the city. What I didn’t realize was how much life the pond would bring to this little patch of land.
The doe crosses our lawn in the middle of the hot afternoon. Her fawn rushes ahead of her, turning the corner around the fence, suddenly out of view. She stops and waits, staring toward a place we can’t see, then bends her head to the grass.
Each night we walk through the neighborhood searching for does and fawns. The evenings are the best time, walking just as darkness falls when a strong breeze makes it feel cooler than it actually is. This spring we’ve been particularly lucky, beginning with the doe and fawn we saw on May 30.
While walking Daisy, we suddenly spotted a mound of golden brown, covered with white spots lying still in the tall grass; our first fawn of the season, curled up in the middle of a neighbor’s lawn.
The first week after the screech owls left the box I thought the backyard would seem empty. Instead, the new pond with its cascading waterfall has brought more bird activity and some unexpected visitors.
We woke to an empty owl box on Friday morning. Two owlets took off on Wednesday evening, the first at 8:40 p.m., the second at 9:03, leaving the other two owlets to follow, but they lingered in the box, shuffling the sawdust, hopping up to the entrance, squawking for their parents to bring food. On Thursday morning only one owlet remained in the box, his sibling having left in the middle of the night.
Mrs. Owl is leaving the box earlier and earlier each day. Yesterday she was gone by noon and didn’t return until evening when it was time to begin feeding. We sat outside and watched the adults fly back and forth to the nest.
The owlets are now two weeks old. I watch them on the owl cam, waddling around the box, shuffling through the sawdust, looking up at their mother who is sitting in the box entrance. She is waiting to leave, anxious to leave. As the owlets grow larger each day and spring days get warmer, the box is becoming crowded and uncomfortable.
The owlets are all almost one week old now. The first egg hatched on Thursday, April 9, and the last on April 11, bringing the final count to four owlets. At one week old, the owlets are no longer amorphous blobs; they have wings which they stretch out as they awkwardly push out from under their mother and wobble around, all fuzzy round heads and tiny beaks and black eyes.
The first owlet hatched yesterday. Last night around 9 p.m., F20 was shuffling the sawdust, spreading her wings and spinning around in the box when tiny chirps could be heard.
