Bird Watching: Daily pictures, Volumn 80, 1 by PeeperKeeper

PeeperKeeper wrote:
Sunday when we got back from our great camping trip, we discovered we finally had an owl in our owl house! I had been wondering if we'd get one.

He was there, looking out of his house from 9am when I first saw him off and on all day while I was gardening out there. At three different times, I saw titmice, chickadees and another little bird I didn't know mobbing the house. One brave little titmouse even sat in the opening and fussed into the house. Unfortunately, I haven't seen him since that day. Do you think I ran him off taking pictures, and/or the birds ran him off, or do they come and go for a while before settling on a nest site?

The second question is will an owl run off the songbirds? I know they occasionally prey on them, but I didn't think they'd stay away from feeders in the daytime. The reason I ask is the first thing I noticed when we got home was that not as much food was eaten from the feeders as I expected, then we saw the owl, then the mobbing and I wondered if it was related.

This is not a great pic. I have better ones on my other camera, but I haven't taken them off the camera yet. I assume this is an Eastern Screech, but I haven't sat down to confirm the ID.