Names For The Owlets

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Choosing names for the owlets is always interesting. The first two groups of owlets in 2006 and 2007 did not get names but in 2008 when there were three owlets, I had to have names and since then I have named each year's owlets.

After some consideration, I have names for the two owlets hatched and fledged this year. I have named the younger, smaller owlet, Monica, after my late aunt, Monica Glenshaw (Aunty Mon), who died on September 20, 2010. I have named the older, bigger owlet, Dalton, after Dalton Brownell, the late father of my good owl and park friend, Barb Brownell. Mr. Brownell died just last week on March 18, 2011.

My Aunty Mon was an incredible lady. A doctor who spent the vast majority of her adult and professional life in rural Zimbabwe doing incredible work with major positive effects both micro and macro as described here. She was a very funny, unpretentious, incredibly hard-working woman with a great can-do attitude. Aunty Mon also had a great love for and connection with animals. I last saw her at my dad's funeral in 2003 and I would have loved to have seen her again before she passed away at much too premature age.

I did not know Mr. Brownell but I have been friends with his daughter, Barb, and her boyfriend/partner/joint-tax filer (and I'm spit-balling on the last one), Chris Gerli for a few years now. Barb and Chris are two of the longest serving fellow observers/owl addicts in both watching Charles and Sarah as well as another pair of Great Horned Owls; John and Jacqueline. No one knows more about these two owls than Barb and Chris. They have done amazing work these past two plus years observing and documenting John and Jacqueline and I am honored to call them owl mentees of mine. Mr. Brownell was surely a superb person both from what I have learned from his obituary and my knowledge of Barb as a person of great knowledge, humor, empathy and compassion.

The ages of the owls correspond with the ages of their namesakes. I don't know if the names correspond with the sex of the owls. Determining the sex of an immature owl requires an extremely up close and personal physical examination, which even if I knew how to do it, I would not do so. I think the owlets would be overly stressed by this process and Sarah might, and with good reason, try to turn me from The Owl Man into The Owl Eunuch. Thank you, no.

Here are pictures of the owlet Monica (be sure to double click on the pictures to see a full size version of each photo):

March 22:






March 23:



March 24:
Here are pictures of the owlet Dalton:

March 21:


March 22:



March 23:



March 24:


And here's both of them from last night, March 24. Dalton is on the left and Monica on the right:

Thank you for reading!