{"id":997320,"date":"2026-08-13T03:08:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T03:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/997320\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T03:08:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T03:08:27","slug":"rare-second-batch-of-eggs-surprises-arizona-barn-owl-biologists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/997320\/","title":{"rendered":"Rare second batch of eggs surprises Arizona barn owl biologists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\"><b>MCNEAL, AZ (AZFamily)<\/b> \u2014 Arizona scientists are saying hoo-ray for a surprising success story for the Whitewater Draw barn owl. The birds laid a second batch of eggs! <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">The two owls in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azgfd.com\/location\/whitewater-draw-wildlife-area\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.azgfd.com\/location\/whitewater-draw-wildlife-area\/\">Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area in Cochise County<\/a> are the focus of the Arizona Game and Fish Department\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azgfd.com\/wildlife-conservation\/wildlife-viewing\/wildlife-live-cams\/live-barn-owls-cam\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.azgfd.com\/wildlife-conservation\/wildlife-viewing\/wildlife-live-cams\/live-barn-owls-cam\/\">live nest camera this spring<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"The first new egg was spotted on Aug. 6, and two more eggs appeared last week.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/U4PAIVPZPFBKTBPSO3QKICFSD4.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"552\" \/>The first new egg was spotted on Aug. 6, and two more eggs appeared last week.(Arizona Game and Fish Department)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">The first new egg was spotted on Aug. 6, and two more eggs appeared last week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">Game and Fish said a second set of eggs only happens in about 10% of barn owl nests.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">Earlier this year, the pair of owls successfully hatched five eggs. All five owlets survived to grow feathers and eventually fly away from the nest, officials said. The journey was streamed on the department\u2019s live barn owl cam.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">Now, all eyes, or rather, owl eyes, are on the three new eggs as scientists are hoping for similar success.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">\u201cWith the coming monsoon rains, we are hoping for heat relief and a rodent population boom to help this second clutch turn into more successful owlets,\u201d said Jeff Meyers, Arizona Game and Fish wildlife viewing program manager.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">Biologists said the second batch of eggs shows the birds are thriving in a healthy habitat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">The department said this was the first time a second set of eggs had been seen on the live nest box camera. To follow the progress of the eggs, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azgfd.com\/wildlife-conservation\/wildlife-viewing\/wildlife-live-cams\/live-barn-owls-cam\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.azgfd.com\/wildlife-conservation\/wildlife-viewing\/wildlife-live-cams\/live-barn-owls-cam\/\">click or tap here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">Barn owls are the most widespread type of owl, appearing on all continents except Antarctica. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/page\/send-us-your-feedback\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Please click here to report it<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/community\/user-content\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">it to us here<\/a> with a brief description.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 KTVK\/KPHO. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MCNEAL, AZ (AZFamily) \u2014 Arizona scientists are saying hoo-ray for a surprising success story for the Whitewater Draw&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":997321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[27],"tags":[399578,166812,30763,323569,399583,7182,399580,35361,399582,114838,399581,159,67,132,68,399579,837,44422],"class_list":["post-997320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-arizona-barn-owls","tag-arizona-game-and-fish","tag-arizona-news","tag-arizona-wildlife","tag-arizona-wildlife-owlets","tag-azfamily","tag-barn-owl-eggs","tag-cochise-county","tag-live-nest-camera","tag-monsoon-rains","tag-rare-second-clutch","tag-science","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-whitewater-draw-wildlife-area","tag-wildlife","tag-wildlife-conservation"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117086002102528643","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=997320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/997321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=997320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=997320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=997320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}