Best way to finally get an owl family to establish themselves in your owl house set up nine years ago? Choose what seems to be the most likely tree, get an arborist to place it nice and high on it (we aimed for 10 feet), set up a brand-new one on another tree specially selected by a renowned owl guy complete with internal wildlife camera the next, monitor both video and nightly parent calls assiduously with dwindling hope, give up hope by mid-May, and randomly look up one day to see- this-

It wasn’t actually totally random. I’d been hearing the lower hoots and trills since January and decided they had disdained both boxes and stuck to the woods. One evening while grabbing greens from the garden- which is right under the original box- I heard again the soft triple hoo of what I now recognise as a parent call. Looking up, there it was- the tentative curve of the dun fuzz of a baby head half-mooning the round entrance. Thrillsville! Run for camera and new sketchbook snapped up on a whim in January. Eight pages over the next week are devoted to recording family progress until fledging day, which as it turned out came only a week after discovery. Here’s what we saw on that note-worthy day-

Parents in the trees, hooing, hissing, dive-bombing! And, by next day- all was quiet, and the box deserted. Supposedly they’re in the surrounding woods now- and we did hear some calls in the days following.

But- even before this welcome event we had a development that totally took my attention from bemoaning our lack of owls to- this-

A wealth of foxes! These guys were born under the little building next door used in summer for an ice cream shop. They migrated north to my barn and are still here- here they are at the head of our driveway. Couldn’t resist them and the foxglove together! More to do on this sketch but wanted to slip it in here.

And, of course, there’s all the customary little families the garden hosts this time of year- our orioles, red-bellied woodpeckers, cardinals, robins, song sparrows- they who so graciously provide our bird song of the day quote (see below). Other lucky people in this town have Eastern bluebirds- a bluebird house is the next set-up! It sounds like a jungle around here in the early mornings.

Yup. A red-letter spring for wildlife families.
Quote of the Day: They thought they could bury us: they didn’t know we were seeds!
Bird song of the day- mi mi mi vdo, ^re