Tuesday, February 2, 2021

Great Gray Owl


 









This past weekend I was fortunate to spend about 15 minutes watching this Great Gray Owl as it looked for prey along the southern edge of a logging cut. We saw the bird about an hour before sunset on a very calm afternoon.  The forest was incredibly quiet.  So much so that even when the owl swooped down to the ground below, not a sound could be heard from its powerful yet impossibly silent wings.  Even more impressive, when it took off from the ground and flew to a different tree there also was no noticeable sound from the bird's movement.  Such amazing creatures!  

























































Above: Owl imprint in the snow.  This is were the bird landed when it swooped down to the ground. Look closely at the top left of the photo to see some marks left where one of the wings scraped the snow as it flew away. 



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