Whoooooo's there?!

Here's a little known fact about Jay Jordan....he likes birds.  He studied birds in high school for fun, and had aspirations of being an or-nith-olo-gist.  (That's the scientific name for an expert bird man.)  When he first revealed this tid bit of history about himself, I thought, "hmm, that's cool, he likes birds."  But it wasn't until I started pointing to every bird I saw and him giving me the name and detailed description of each, that I realized how passionate about it he had once been. 

Unfortunately, I did not share the same passion and the extent of my knowledge on the fowl subject (hee hee) extends to knowing the difference between a blue bird and a red bird.  SO, it has been a real learning experience for me...and my hands-on learning began last October when Jay discovered an owl nest with eggs in one of my dad's deerstands.  Jay returned to the house so excited to share the news...and his excitement shortly spread throughout the family.  Before long, you would have thought that we had us a family of pet owls that we were raising. (That's just what we sounded like.  Jay informed me that it is illegal to "raise" a predatory bird; i.e. an owl.)

Now Jay was in charge of keeping us all updated on the family, and no one was allowed to use this deer stand ALL DEER SEASON.  I can't believe that no one protested this, but we were all too interested in our little owl family.  Every weekend that Jay and I went to visit, he would go to the deerstand and take pictures....and that's why I am writing this post.  I want to share these pictures.  It was amazing.

Here's the little guy!  He was the only survivor out of the whole nest of eggs.  You can see the food that his mama was bringing him...

The white feathers that they have when they are young are down feathers.  You can see that in the coming weeks the baby starts to lose its down...

 This is its regurgitated food.  It compounds in its stomach, I think, and comes back up as a hard pellet.  When Jay broke it apart (GROSS) you could see little mice bones etc.

The heart shaped mask on his face is actually bone...supercool.  And he has lost most of his down by this time:

These are the last pictures of our feathered friend before he took off.

A full grown Barn Owl!  Amazing.

Thank you Jay for opening my eyes to a subject that I never before found very appealing.  These amazing creatures are beautiful and I look forward to many years of learning and watching and listening.  Thank you for being interested in something so unique and fun.  You constantly impress me and I have no doubts that you will continue to dazzle me for the rest of our lives.