Nature Done Wright

  Just when I’d read up on screech owls and thought I’d figured out what was going on — wham — I’m scratching my head again.

  From April 1 to April 5, Mrs. Ace laid three eggs — then nothing.

   I figured that after six days without laying another egg, Mrs. Ace had finished laying eggs and was entering full-scale incubation.

  Wrong.

   As you can see from the screech-cam image taken Wednesday night, the egg count has hit four.

   This flies in the face of most of what I have read about screech-owl nesting, which said that screechers laid an egg every two or three days at first, and then  started to lay them every day once had they reached two or three.

  I wonder if the cold snap of the past week has altered the cycle.

   I also think of that quote from the Cornell ornithological Web site that said very little is known about the nesting behavior of screech owls. 

   Then I recall a comment by an owl expert who has been offering me advice.

   "Should be lots of interesting stuff happening there in the next two months," he wrote in an e-mail recently. 

   "Some of the observations you are going to have might be surprising, or maybe at least (at first) confusing."

   That’s me — a bit surprised and confused — and amazed just about every day. Can’t wait to find out happens next.

   One of the things that amazed me was how the discovery of the fourth egg unfolded — totally unexpectedly.

  Wednesday just past dusk, Mrs. Ace hopped up to perch in the opening of the nesting box, and I thought I could detect a fourth egg below those feathers.

  Sure enough, when she repositioned herself, there they were.

   Here’s the whole sequence: