Yvonne wrote: >Does this mean that the parents store food in
the nest for them to eat during the day?. I assume it was the female
owl sitting on the nest with the young. There was another owl
roosting nearby in an evergreen tree. It seemed smaller than the one
in the nest but I'm not good at size comparisons unless the birds are
sitting right next to each other.>

I've heard that Great Horned Owls will line their nests with prey items,
which serves as a way of caching food for the future and as a way of making
the nest warmer. Nothing like snuggling up to a dead skunk.

Also, the smaller owl you saw perched nearby was probably the male. Can't
imagine the brooding female allowing any other raptors to perch nearby. And
males are smaller.

Chris Maack
Anchorage, AK
CMaack at compuserve.com