From Jason Fowler
This is why you leave owls alone when they are on eggs. People think the owl isn’t stressed standing under her talking loudly with other people.
I haven’t left this branch in 19 days.
It’s 4°F. The wind is 25 mph. The wind chill is -15°F. (That’s -15C, 40 kmh, and -26C respectively.)
I am a Great Horned Owl, and I am incubating three eggs that cannot survive one hour without my body heat.
- I cannot leave to hunt. My mate brings me food, when he can find it.
- I’ve lost 15% of my body weight since I started sitting.
-My feathers are caked with ice. I cannot preen.
- I rotate my eggs every 30 minutes, even at 3 AM.
- I have 9 more days of this before they hatch.
Beneath me, three heartbeats depend on my stillness. If I leave for 20 minutes, they die. If I shift wrong, they freeze on one side. If a predator comes, I must fight without abandoning the nest.
Motherhood is not a feeling. It is a 28-day siege.
Once they hatch, she does get some short breaks to go to the pantry or bathroom, but she will still be with her owlets as much as possible for the next 2 months until they leave the nest. She still has to keep them safe. The parents will still try to help them get through their first winter, and then the kids will be on their own to find their own territories.