Looked in on the box this morning and were surprised to see the mother owl gone. I suspected something had gone wrong and checked the image history for the night. Sure enough, the 2015 season ended last night due to a Ringtailed Cat breech into the box.
It's sad, but as they say, "Mother Nature can be a bitch." My experience tells me that a mother Eastern Screech Owl just does not defend their nest against a predator. In the seven years we have have been monitoring the nesting box this is the second Ringtailed Cat episode. In addition to that, there were two seasons that we were forced to get a ladder and interact with the nesting box. The mother and father owl just sat watching and never mounted a defense in all four instances.
The pictures below tell the story for this year's end. The Ringtail enters at 1:39:58AM and leaves at 1:59:47AM without being challenged by the adult owls.
