Sunday, April 17, 2005

Great Horned Owl Nest

Three posts in a month is a lot for me, so three in a weekend is easily a record. My wife works for a wildlife adventure travel company and is really into animals. The baby foxes next door were a big treat, and during the progressive dinner last night, a neighbor mentioned a great horned owl nest within walking distance ... so we ambled over there this evening with the boys. Wildlife is often hard to see, but the nest was fairly obvious as can be seen in the first picture below. In the second picture, you can see a parent above the nest, with two babies below it - one in particular is checking us out - be sure to click on the picture to see a larger image. Great horned owls can be over two feet long and they sure looked big through the binocs. I shot these with a Sony F828 digicam using the full 200mm telephoto - I needed about 2-3x that to really get in tight.
Update: Added (with permission) an impressive (different) owl picture shot by Paul Beiser - click on it for a larger image. Shot with a Nikon D2X with 300mm F/4 and 1.4x TC14 II tele-converter using mirror pre-release and 2 second self-timer to minimize vibrations - check out more Paul Pictures.
2010 Update: After some Red-Tailed Hawks took over, the Great Horned Owls returned to the nest - perhaps the next generation?!? ;-)









4 Comments:

Blogger Lever said...

Nice one Alek, so you'll soon have a neighbourhood free of all small rodents... and maybe some medium-sized ones too if those Owls get too big?

Watchout little foxes...

Monday, April 18, 2005 1:03:00 PM  
Blogger Lever said...

Nice one Alek, so you'll soon have a neighbourhood free of all small rodents... and maybe some medium-sized ones too if those Owls get too big?

Watchout little foxes...

Monday, April 18, 2005 1:03:00 PM  
Blogger alekkomar said...

There are a fair number of rabbits around, so my guess is they would be the main food source for the foxes and owls (plus a few neighborhood cats have recently "disappeared") ... but yea, I hadn't thought about the owl going after the little foxes.

Monday, April 18, 2005 2:10:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Can any one tell me how round the great horned owl is in circumference. I believe I finally found his nest in a hole in the tree and was wondering how round his body is, and if it would fit in this hole? I keep hearing him hooting. i followed the direction and this tree is the most likely spot. I know how tall they are and how wide they are with wing span, but i cant find anywhere that tells its bodies width. Appreciate any help
Thanks!

Wednesday, May 05, 2010 2:53:00 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home