Nature Done Wright

     Sometime in the past few weeks, nature played a trick on me. It appears that a new owl, a female, is now residing at 1 Owlbox Lane.

   Yesterday I asked an owl expert to read the blog, look at the photos, listen to the sound files and offer his explanation as to what was going on in the past week.

  His response: From the information provided on the blog, Ace in all likelihood is a "she," likely toward the end of the courtship phase. 

   My conclusion: Ace has relinquished his bachelor pad so that a female companion could live there.

    As a result, I am going to adjust the gender references from now on and chalk it up to a steep learning curve.

   After all, screech owls are nocturnal creatures seen largely through infrared images. It is often difficult to tell one screech owl from another, especially if they are both the same color.

   I did take some photos of the new Ace in the opening today, and I am posting one here, along with a shot of the owl in the opening from nearly three months ago.  And then you can help me decide. 

Here is the November owl.

And below is the owl today.

I am thinking my nocturnal neighbors pulled the old switcheroo — maybe as recently as a couple of days ago. What do you think?