We turned on the camera this morning and found a gray female owl in the box! While we haven't checked it during daylight hours for a while, we think she probably arrived during the night. A couple of days ago, there was no apparent change in the shape of the wood shavings, and we haven't seen her in the evenings in the entrance hole. She was inside all day, sitting up in the entrance at one point in the afternoon.

This evening, she spent 40 minutes in the doorway, and then flew out at 6:44pm. This year, we have a microphone in the box, so we can hear (but not webcast, unfortunately) what is going on. Around 6:50, we heard a faint yelping sound, which was shortly followed by Mr. Owl's entrance into the box. He made the yelping sound from within the box, and was soon joined by Mrs. Owl. He left very soon, and she spent 2 minutes rearranging the wood shavings and scratching on the bottom of the box. She left for the evening at 6:55.

She returned at 6:32 this morning, shuffled on the box floor for 1 minute, and was in the entryway for nearly an hour (58 minutes). She dropped down after spending a couple of minutes observing us taking the dog out for his morning business.

For several reasons, we believe this is the same female as last year: