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Owlet!!!! / C.Swift factoid




On Mon. night campus Mom Owl seemed to be trying to coax babies out of the nesthole and sure enough tonight(Tue) one owlet was perched precariously about 10 feet out of nest entrance. HeÕs darker and more heavily-streaked than some of the frizzy white puffballs of the past(and a bit more serious-looking, like he ainÕt too happy to be here!). IÕd hoped for multiple babies this yr. but now suspect he may be a lone child. By tomorrow, heÕll probably be at least half way up nest tree (oak just south of ÔCaldwellÕ memorial on front quad). When I departed tonight both Mom and Dad were flying around with rodent-filled talons, so hopefully Junior was about to be fed (and hopefully heÕll survive graduation weekend!!).


I recently emailed Paul Kyle of the Texas C. Swift monitoring project some basic questions about Swift roosts and was surprised by one of the answers I got back (although maybe this is common knowledge to many of you) -- Paul tells me that only ONE pair of C. Swifts nest at any given site, and if I see 2000 birds go down the post office chimney there is at most one breeding pair at the bottom with all the other birds roosting higher up either as nonbreeding summer residents or migratory swifts heading farther north(and the non-breeding birds aren't too
young to breed, they simply can't find enough available nest sites) !


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**Rob Gluck........ Chapel Hill,NC........ thrush@hotmail.com

"And on the fifth day God created birds....(days 1-4 must've been a real drag)."

-- old Leica binocular ad

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