Monday, June 10, 2013

A Look At Some Hooters

Ok, how many of you worried about what you'd see when you got here? And yet you were so intrigued, you continued on. Thank you.

The other night, Mr Farmer and I were sitting in our easy chairs. It was dusk. I looked out the front window and saw some fluffy bird silhouettes in the trees. I knew they were not our usual birds. Mr Farmer had been hearing a strange sound all evening.

I got out the binoculars. The tree is fairly close to the house, but any light left outside was behind the trees, making it hard to see the birds. One bird flew to the ground right in front of me. Sure enough, it wasn't one of our usual birds. It was an owl.

Now, I had to figure out what kind it was. Immediately I thought barn owl. I've never seen any owl in the wild, so it was just a guess. I looked online for different owls. Based on what little I saw, I concluded it might be a northern Saw-whet owl. It seemed the closest to what I remembered seeing.

Night two comes along. Dusk settles in and they are back. Those fluffy little hooters. This time I decide to sneak out and try to get a picture of them. I know their hearing is amazing so I didn't really hold out much hope of getting anything.

I turned on the camera in the house so I wouldn't have that noise. Then, as stealthily as possible for an old woman in flip flops, I snuck slowly around to the front of the house.

They were still sitting there. I could see four of them. Since owls are solitary creatures, I figured they must be babies, fresh from the nest. I snapped a few pictures with my zoom. As I was looking, I noticed there were at least five of them, not four

.

Then, Buddy decided the owls were a huge danger to my safety and ran at the tree, barking like he would tear them to shreds if they didn't leave immediately. Great!

But, I noticed one of them flew to the bigger tree and didn't scare off. Buddy didn't notice him. I walked over, expecting he would fly away at any second. He didn't.

He just sat there and let me snap his picture, over and over again. How cool!







With my new pictures, I headed inside to research what kind they were. I noticed ear tufts. There are only two kinds of owls with ear tufts in our area. And the most common was the Great Horned Owl. That is what we had, five baby Great Horned Owls!

Here is a stock photo of an adult. So pretty!

http://naturemappingfoundation.org/natmap/photos/birds/great_horned_owl_8754np.jpg

What's the coolest bird you've seen in the wild?

 

10 comments:

  1. I knew it was going to be about owls when I read the title! I think we've been together too long...I can read you like a book :-D

    Beautiful bird. Years ago, before they put a freeway in the spot, I used to drive by a fenced in area on my way to work each morning, and sitting on the same fence post, every single morning, was a burrowing owl. They are a tiny species, and so darned cute! I also used to see a huge Blue Heron down on the river path, as well as white pelicans (they have huge wing spans!). My favorite bird though, was Rob. Mr. Granny rescued the baby robin after he fell from a nest on our patio, and for the next two spring/summers that adult bird would fly to the front porch and just sit by him. We recognized him from an odd marking, a dark ring around his neck, that the other robins didn't have. He even brought his mate, and later on a young offspring, but they would perch on the fence rather than on the porch with Rob.

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    1. What a fun story about Rob! The kids tried to rescue one yesterday that came home in a Martin's nesting box that we brought home from an auction Saturday. We heard it chirping when we unloaded the house the next day. It was so young that it didn't survive though.

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  2. what an amazing treat! So rare to see them in the wild, you were so lucky and wasn't I lucky to have found you today, this is my first visit here and it was an owl post, I have painted over 50 paintings of owls and they hang all over the world, its so nice to meet you! I will enjoy following along on your adventures, beautiful photos, thank you for sharing!!!

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    1. Welcome, Laurie. I'm glad you stopped by.

      It was the first time I've ever seen one in the wild. And they had very little fear of me. We'd watch them flit around playing in the trees out front.

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  3. Ohhhh! I would love to see owls in the wild! Holy Cow!! And babies, that is just beyond all odds. Lucky, lucky you!!

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    1. It was so fun to watch them playing in the trees. At least I assume that's what they were doing, flitting back and forth.

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  4. Wow, what beautiful pictures you got of this owl!! I love seeing all the creatures, so I can't really tell you one favorite. lol

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    1. I know. I wish I had been able to get more photos of them. They just sat and posed so pretty.

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  5. I really enjoyed seeing the photos of your owls, especially the group picture with all of their eyes glowing! I hope they will continue to be in your yard for a long time.

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    1. We haven't seen them in awhile except for the one killed by the cats. I hope they are just in the background somewhere.

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