GREAT HORNED OWL NESTLINGS

Atop a topless wall jutting into free space at the side of the hurricane-ravaged, old henequen mill next to my lodging, during each of the last several years a pair of Great Horned Owls has produced two offspring. It's not clear whether the parents are the same owls each year, but we like to think that they are.

For the last few weeks I've ended my tours of the hacienda by taking folks to see the mother patiently sitting on her nest, visible as two ear-tufts rising from a mat of brown grass that's established itself atop the ruined wall. Always two or more large Black Iguanas encircled her, facing the nest, and it sure looked as if those iguanas were waiting for the right moment for an egg or nestling meal. Remember that at Komchén last year we had problems with Black Iguanas eating eggs in the hen house.

About a week ago one morning the mother appeared to be off her nest, showing herself from the chest up. I guessed then that the nestlings had hatched and that now they were large enough to displace the mother. This Wednesday two fuzzy little heads appeared next to the mother, the iguanas were gone, and the father was flying around carrying in his talons the gut-dangling remains of what was probably a rat, but could have been an iguana. The nestlings were surprisingly unlike one another in their faces. Atop their heads their future "horns" were no more than low, bushy bumps.

Species-wise, this is the same Great Horned Owl, BUBO VIRGINIANUS, that North Americans know, the one that goes hoo, hoo-hoo-hoo hoo-hoo, more or less. The species enjoys an especially large distribution, being found from northern Canada and Alaska to Tierra del Fuego in extreme South America. Its habitats range from arid deserts to humid evergreen and deciduous forests, and dry, hacked-up scrub like ours. During my first months here I heard them every night, but lately they've been quieter.

By the way, our many Ferruginous Pygmy-owls are as conspicuous with their pulsating calls as ever. Occasionally at night I hear a Barn Owl and Darwin has seen his white form silently sweeping past him as he biked from town late at night. We are also supposed to have Vermiculated Screech-owls, Mottled Owls and possibly Burrowing Owls here, but I've not seen them.