That is so beautiful, Jean!!! I love how your photos always tell the whole story...like the bluejay in the background. Very cool! Bad for the bird, but once again, AWESOME that you were there to help him on his way, Chicka! I can't even imagine how incredible it is to be that close to an owl, to touch it and cuddle. Ok, I'm getting carried away again. LOL LOL @ line dancing! I'm very shy about shining the light up into their eyes in the early morning. I always feel like I'm going to mess with their wildness or something, so I haven't tried getting them all to dance with me...yet. :D They are SO loud now, I'm also worried some idiot in the neighborhood is going to do something stupid to quiet them up. I sound like an irrational, nervous mom! Brenda

I live out in the country on 14 acres of mostly forested land and we have barn owls and bats. They seem to peacefully co-exist and I've never seen the owls bother the bats or vice versa. What we do have is two owls that fly together and hunt together. They have been here the entire time we've owned this property--about 8 years now. One is a barn owl and the other is a screech owl. The barn owl always flies from one location to the other. Seconds later the screech owl follows and lands near him/her. The barn owl will hoot. The screech owl will screech. We call them (obviously) Hooty and Screechy. They are ALWAYS together. I don't know if the way they have teamed up together is "normal" or not, but I think it is cute!

Just saw this discussion. If you have great horned owls, you wont see barn owls. They usually become prey to GH owls, unfortunately. I wouldn't encourage them either as you don't want them wandering into GH territory.

To keep the wasps from nesting there next year, try rubbing shortening on the ceiling of the box. It keeps the wasps from attaching their nest. People use it on Bluebird boxes all the time. If you don't have shortening, you can rub soap on the ceiling instead. Just don't get it on the sides so it won't get on the birds. Obviously this is after the wasps are gone and the box cleaned out (wouldn't want you to get stung).