Our next segment will be movement activity after fledging.

Let's pick up where the birds fledged.

They both jumped from the nest and they're in a woodlot and they are a couple trees apart.

This distance is for their individual safety.

The mom knows where they are.

She's watching all this comings and goings and probably now I'm being anthropomorphic thinking, oh boy, now I gotta keep track of them, they're on the move.

So the birds will move about the woodlot.

For about two days, they will move about within eyeshot of the nest.

It might not be a safe place because it might be in a park where there's a lot of people going about, coming and going and that, but give them two days in familiar territory that they've looked out upon for 55 days.

So they kind of are in a close neighborhood.

The mom will want to get them to safety and to where there is a greater resource so that she can hunt and feed them and keep an eye on them and keep everything in close contact.

So she will move them to a more secure area.

Let's say a better piece of real estate where there's more available food at searching places, etc..

They're watching her as she moves about the woodlot also.

These birds actually learn things after they're off the nest through mimicry and through association.

That means they are going to do what they see the mom does and they are going to go where she goes and they're going to be following her and learning in the process.

The owl parents have invested a lot of time in this nesting cycle.

Now that the owlets are off the nest, they are going to keep a close track on the movements in a relatively secure area with an abundance of the resource.

For ease of tending the young when they're off the nest, because they're mobile, they'll be moving around, the mom will probably hunt in close proximity to where they are.

She will take food to them and they will feed from a perch wherever they happen to be.

At this stage of the game, and I should have mentioned this previously, they are producing pellets, which would be indistinguishable from adult pellets.

A pellet actually is the indigestible remains of a particular prey item.

It is the part of the prey item that offers no nutrients, such as fur, feathers, nails, teeth.

What happens is the bird will swallow everything.

In the gut, that'll be sorted out.

The nutrients will be retained and the indigestibles will be balled up and ejected orally.

And that is one of the ways to get rid of the non-useful parts of a prey item.

They also excrete anally as well.

But pellet production is really a way that you can kind of locate the owls if you can find them in the woods and so forth.

So with that in mind, the parent will feed the young throughout the woodlot.

The babies will move about each day, strengthening musculature.

Feather development is occurring.

They're starting in about two weeks after they fledge to be able to do a sustained flight, which then even gives them more mobility in flying after the parents to start learning where the haunts are, where the prey items are located.

The owlets have no idea where to look for food.

But by following the parents, visualizing the parent catching a prey item, getting the reward of the prey item being brought to them, all of these things begin to click.

And that's how young owlets learn to hunt, primarily through mimicry and association.