Hello there! My family and I have lived in a wooded area that homes many barred owls. This year, we've taken a liking to a particular one, who we've nicknamed "Junior".
This is a shot I got of him:
Junior is smaller than the other owls we've seen and doesn't fly very often or far. He usually sits on a low tree branch and cries (a very certain call, that I have yet to find a matching recording of online. I've included some clips of it below). He doesn't fight back when he gets picked on by crows, and we've seen him being fed dead prey by larger owls. I've yet to see him hunt/try to hunt on his own, so I'm assuming most of his food is gotten from the older owls. He perplexes me, and I can't seem to find any information online about this stage of the barred owl life cycle. Is it a common thing for younger (1-2 yrs) barred owls to still cry and be fed by their parents? Or is he just a whiny mama's boy?
Junior crying, caught during the daytime as well as at night-
The Junior situation got even more perplexing today when I heard the screeching cries of barred owlets. Sure enough, there were three babies looking no more than a few weeks old high up in a nearby tree. Junior flew to a branch nearby and did his signature "whine" as I've come to call it. Another more mature owl flew in as well, landing closer to the nest and making the standard "who cooks for you" call, which was met with a responding call from far away. I'm assuming the two owls that do the "who cooks" calls are the parents of the owlets, but where does that put Junior? Could he possibly be a parent to these owlets? Or could they be his little siblings, hatched a year after him?
Any and all thoughts are appreciated! I've been trying to dig up any information I can on barred owls but nothing seems to fit Junior's point in life. Thank you all for reading if you've read this far, and I hope I can come to some conclusion about this delightful little owl!
This is a shot I got of him:
Junior is smaller than the other owls we've seen and doesn't fly very often or far. He usually sits on a low tree branch and cries (a very certain call, that I have yet to find a matching recording of online. I've included some clips of it below). He doesn't fight back when he gets picked on by crows, and we've seen him being fed dead prey by larger owls. I've yet to see him hunt/try to hunt on his own, so I'm assuming most of his food is gotten from the older owls. He perplexes me, and I can't seem to find any information online about this stage of the barred owl life cycle. Is it a common thing for younger (1-2 yrs) barred owls to still cry and be fed by their parents? Or is he just a whiny mama's boy?
Junior crying, caught during the daytime as well as at night-
The Junior situation got even more perplexing today when I heard the screeching cries of barred owlets. Sure enough, there were three babies looking no more than a few weeks old high up in a nearby tree. Junior flew to a branch nearby and did his signature "whine" as I've come to call it. Another more mature owl flew in as well, landing closer to the nest and making the standard "who cooks for you" call, which was met with a responding call from far away. I'm assuming the two owls that do the "who cooks" calls are the parents of the owlets, but where does that put Junior? Could he possibly be a parent to these owlets? Or could they be his little siblings, hatched a year after him?
Any and all thoughts are appreciated! I've been trying to dig up any information I can on barred owls but nothing seems to fit Junior's point in life. Thank you all for reading if you've read this far, and I hope I can come to some conclusion about this delightful little owl!
