First Hatching!

Last night Mrs. Owl stayed in the box for all but 1 morning break of 100 seconds, and for a very good reason: her first egg hatched! In the first photo, you can see her with an eggshell in her mouth at 4:32 am. She most likely ate it to recover the calcium. In the second shot, you can see the tiny little wings raised of the owlet. This was snapped when she took her morning break at about 6:30 am. Because she spends most of her time incubating the owlet and the other eggs, we have only a handful of poor shots of the little tyke, but we hope for more views soon. Your best chances of seeing the owlet live would be 8pm or 6:30am if she takes a break or sits in the entrance then.
For the first 10 days or so, the owlet will need its mother's warmth before it can self-thermoregulate. After that, there will be many more views of the growing owlets moving around. It's a happy spring day in the owl box!

This hatching was earlier than we expected. Hatching normally takes 28.5-32.1 days (according to Gehlbach) once incubation begins. We went back and looked at our photo logs, and found that she did do some incubating on March 13th, the day the egg was laid. Even though she didn't incubate continuously, the outside temperature was in the 90's, and so development probably proceeded as if she were sitting on them. So, 29 days is quite a normal hatching time for that egg. We anticipate the rest will hatch in 1-2 day intervals.