Junior peers down from his perch high in a tree in the home grove. He is busy keeping an eye on the nesting tree. It is May, 2002, and his twins are about to fledge.
The first owlet to fledge is a male that we named "Albert." He is seen here in early July, 2002.
We named Albert's twin sister "Victoria." Like most young females, she stayed hidden more but is larger than her brother. We didn't see much of these twins; Junior and Penelope did a good job of keeping them out of sight.
By early November, the twins had grown up and left the territory. Junior settles back into his roost in the big sycamore tree for another winter.
Junior and Penelope raised twins again in 2003 and 2004, but we were never able to get pictures of them. The reason is that a pair of Cooper's Hawks nested near the home grove. The hawks raised young both years and were very active hunters. One of their young hawks is seen above in July, 2003. The owls were very careful to stay away from the hawks as an owlet would be a tempting target for a Cooper's Hawk. We did see and hear the owlets and determined that there were two each year, but our sightings were after sunset when there wasn't enough light for photography. The parents took their owlets north, up Killbuck Creek soon after they fledged and we were not able to follow their development for these two years.