Here's what we found on March 5th. Something other than a squirrel head! An Eastern Screech-Owl.

That first morning, she spent quite a while in the entrance hole, observing her new world.

Sometimes she preferred to hide and look at us with just one eye.

Sometimes she was more attentive and opened her eyes wider.

She even stayed out in the broad daylight, looking towards the western sun.

She's a beautiful red morph, a race that is rather rare in the west.

If you look closely at the eye, you can see our house and the woodpecker tree reflected in it.

Now we're REALLY hiding. She's looking at us through a crescent sliver of her iris.

This is our view of her, without magnification. You can see the power of digiscoping!

The box is about 15 feet up in a tree, partly sheltered by a branch above.

Right about 7pm every day, she flies. On March 14 and 16, we saw her gray mate visit her just before she left. One time, he brought her a nice little snack at this time.

Mr. Owl likes to perch in an understory tree behind the nest tree.

Here his is in his tall, thin cryptic pose, looking like a dead limb.

A few minutes later, he has shifted to a more squat, rounded shape.

Here he is, keeping an eye on me, but not very concerned.

Here he is drifting off back to sleep after a long night hunting for his owlets.

Mrs. Owl was up in the morning, having a little shuteye, too.

Our first daytime look at an owlet! This one is gray. We don't know if there are others yet, or what color they are.

The owlet is staring at us, as his mother did, at first, learning who we are.