Natures Notes - February 2012

Our earliest nesting birds already are incubating eggs by mid-February. These are the great horned owls, which typically begin nesting in late January in DuPage County. Great horned owls do not build their own nests. Sometimes they find a tree cavity, the floor of which has soft, rotting wood or the remains of a squirrel nest.

The other common nest site is a hawk nest from last year.

On rare occasions a squirrel nest will do if it has a solid foundation.

A common incubation period is 30 days. The mother owl begins incubating with the first egg, so the young hatch a day...