The Fairmont Saw-whets

Here's the male Saw-whet at its roost, we found him here easily since he was tooting during the day.

After repeatedly following the tooting, and looking almost always for a roost site, I finally found the bird tooting from this hollow. Unfortunately, when I checked out the cavity with my pole-top camera on May 29th, 2003, it turned out that the cavity did not have a nest. I thought it was too late to start a nest.
 
 

June 4th, 2003. I took May up to the site to show her the cavity. Was I ever surprised to see the female looking down at us. She was incubating one egg, therefore, the nest was at most only two days old.

I check the nests using a pole-top camera and monitor. This is a home-built version that does me well. In the left picture, I am manipulating the camera behind the owl to check the nest contents. Ivan is holding the monitor. In the right picture, you can see that the camera is inside the cavity, but the owl is more focused on us.
 

July 05, 2003. May and I checked the cavity and found one of the three eggs hatched. This is a really late nest.

One egg was still present on 21 July, the third egg's fate is unknown. Therefore, only one chick in this nest.

July 21, 22, 2003. 
 
 

R.F. Lauff Department of Biology St. Francis Xavier University Antigonish, NS Canada B2G 2W5