Who's on eggs...again?

This video, recorded on March 26, 2008 during a nest box check, shows that our barn owls are at it again! We left some of the babies with Athena and Sonar, but they have started a second clutch anyway. Here are the older babies and Athena's 6 new eggs:

Hatch alert! Augur buzzards are out of the egg...

Tyler and Arusha’s first chick hatched on Saturday. This is the chick who was pipping in the earlier video. As you can see, she or he is quite vocal and doing well. The second chick is on its way out of the egg in this video.

Notice that when Arusha comes to brood, she balls up her talons in order not to harm her chicks. She’s a very good mother! See below the video for more information on Augur Buzzards.


The Augur Buzzard (family Accipitridae, Buteo rufofuscus) is the highest flying hawk in Africa and can reach heights of more than 10,000 feet. They stand 21 inches tall and have a wingspan over four feet wide. They are larger cousins of the red tailed hawk of North America and have a brick red tail, just like the red tailed hawk. Their nickname "the jackal" comes from their loud laughing call.

Augur Buzzards are one of the more common birds of prey in Africa and are found in the East African countries of Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and central Namibia. They diet primarily on reptiles like lizards and snakes, but they also eat small mammals and carrion when need be.

Female Augur Buzzards are around 10% larger than males. Here is a picture of one of our Augur Buzzards used for education, Kee-oo. Kee-oo is a dark phase female. She hatched in 1992.

Who's on eggs?

As we look forward to more spring babies, one chick I can't wait to see hatch is the Lanner Falcon. In the wild, Lanner Falcons are found primarily in Africa, but their range extends into parts of Greece and Italy as well as Asia Minor. Lanners are monogamous and known for their dramatic courtship flight displays. They typically lay between 1 and 5 eggs that incubate for 32 days before hatching.

Here you see our Lanner Falcon, Laela, settling down to incubate her two eggs.

Hatch alert! Augur Buzzard pipping

As you can see from the video below, new augur buzzards are on the way! The augur buzzard chick has started to pip, or break, out of the egg. As Arusha switches with Tyler, you can see one of the eggs has a hole in it. She was chirping to the egg and it was chirping back.

"What is the hatch process?" you may ask. First, the chick breaks through the membrane that surrounds it into the air cell at the larger end of the egg. When that happens, you can hear the baby cheeping and the egg starts rocking and rolling. As the CO2 builds up, the chick's neck muscles start to contract and it breaks the egg shell (see hole in egg below). Breaking into the air cell is called an internal pip, while breaking through the shell is called an external pip.

The hatching takes anywhere from 24 to 72 hours. We don't generally intervene because it takes time for all of the blood vessels in the membrane to shut down. If you tear the membrane before they shut down, the resulting blood can kill the chick.

This baby will be raised by the parents in order to avoid imprinting.

Meanwhile, back at the nest....

Here you see Athena hard at work caring for her young. Brooding Five chicks is tough work!

Barn owls start incubating as soon as the first egg is laid, so the oldest chick is two weeks older (and considerably bigger) than the youngest chick. Raptor chicks can't thermo-regulate, so Athena has to brood them to keep them warm. As they get older and get more down, they need less brooding.

The chicks being raised in the nest box will be released here in Missouri. In the midwest, barn owls are rare. The parents (Athena and Sonar) are both unreleasable rehab birds. Most of the babies we raise are released. A smaller number are raised for breeding or education.