Nature Done Wright

  This much I know about monitoring screech owls:

   The learning curve is steep, and there seem to be few absolutes.

   But looking at Web sites that have Eastern screech owl information for birders (some of which seems contradictory), I get the impression that incubation starts as soon as the first egg is laid — meaning that  eggs laid early in the nesting process hatch earlier as well.

   I hesitate to speculate when owlets might arrive because the process seems to be such a fragile one, but the numbers I keep hearing for incubation are  26 days or so.

   Because of the screech cam, we know the first egg was laid on April 1. That means Mrs. Ace’s eggs could be expected to hatch between Apr. 27 and May 7 — most likely on different days.

    The ones that hatch earliest have the best chances of survival.

   Right now, Mrs. Ace is sitting on her eggs, with the constant drum of rain on the roof of the nesting box. Last night, before the storm, Mr. Ace was dropping off moths to feed her.