A Great Horned owl has nested in the backyard of a Lehigh woman’s house. Here she has hatched her babies and is now teaching two babies how to fly. Photo by Tina Sanford.

A Great Horned owl has been the subject of amusement for the residents of Villages in Bethany Trace, a gated community of nice homes off of Homestead Rd.

Joan Dreistadt, whose friends call her “Joanne” says every other year, a large mother owl returns to the same pine trees in her back yard, nest and lay eggs and hatches them and then proceeds to teach them how to take care of themselves.

“Everyone around, all the neighbors have enjoyed watching my owls come back ever so often,” Dreistadt said.

“It all started back in 2004 when there was an owl with one baby, then in 2006, an owl with two babies, and now in 2010, an owl with two small babies.

“I’m not sure it’s the same mama owl. It could be one of the little ones who has come back to roost as a grown mama owl, but the safe bet in the neighborhood is that it is the same mama owl who returns ever so often to her favorite roosting place.

Two baby owls wait on limb, huddled together, waiting for their mama to come back with food. Photo by Tina Sanford

“She’s so beautiful,” Dreistadt mused. “She leaves now after they have been born and then she comes back with food and gives some to each of the two …. sometimes now that the babies have grown, she backs down the limb as if to invite her brood to follow her. It’s all really interesting,” Dreistadt said.

One of her younger neighbors, Tina Sanford, who lives down the street loves to take pictures with a new Nikon digital camera and has lots of photos taken of the mama owl and her baby owls that are about 50 to 60 feet up in the trees.

Dreistadt has gone on the Internet to learn more about her visitors. She found out that the Great Horned owl lays eggs the size of a chicken egg and that the mama owl sits on them and in four weeks, the babies start to hatch. After the first one hatches, another one will hatch in three or four days.

When the “owlets” are born, they are helpless and are covered with white features that are called “down.” When they are around 45 days old, they start to get new feathers.

When they are born, they are the size of a little chick but they cannot do anything. A baby chick can walk around and gets its food, but an owlet just stays in the nest and cries for its parents.

Pointing to baby owls. Joan Dreistadt points to the tall pines in her back yard where a mama owl and her babies are nesting. Photo by Mel Toadvine

“It can’t fly,” Dreistadt said. “But then comes a day when the little ones fly off and so does the mama owl. I guess she has done her thing, raised them, taught them how to find food and fly.

“The mama owl goes out sometimes for a night and a whole day to find food to bring back for her babies. When the owlets are five weeks old, they can start going out of their nest and at 10 weeks old, they try to fly.

“What happens is that the mama owl brings food back and sits on a nearby branch and then the babies try to fly by flapping their wings to the food, but soon they can fly on their own.”

Dreistadt says she had not seen any large owls like this in Florida, but her research has proven it is the Great Horned owl. It is the largest North American owl, about two feet tall with a four-foot or greater wing span and covered with varying brown and gray toned features mixed with white on its underside.

“They called them Great Horned owls because of their ear tufts which give the illusion of horns. They have long curved talons and their eyes are always looking forward even when they rotate their heads.

Tina Sanford is a photographer with a digital camera with a long lens. She is able to get closeup pictures of the mama owl and her babies.

“The mama bird just sits there looking at her babies. Then she flies off and finds what appears to be a big piece of meat. Then she teaches them to fly by beckoning them to flap over to the meat.

“I really am afraid they won’t come back when they start widening Homestead Rd., because the pines in her backyard will back up to a wider roadway.

“They would probably have to cut the trees down, but without any money to widen the road, maybe it is a time off,” she laughed.

“The mama owl doesn’t seem to be afraid of us while we’re looking up at her. It’s like she has everything in control,” Dreistadt smiled.

“Oh I have had 50 and more people coming over to my backyard to watch, but it doesn’t seem to upset the mama or her babies,” Dreistadt said.

Joan Dreistadt

“I bring popcorn out for her, but she doesn’t come down to get it. I think she only wants to find meat for their meals.”