Date: 11/10/24 8:07 am From: Pete Sole <pete...> Subject: [MBBIRDS] owls early in the morn..
Hi birders,
Woke up a little early today and heard our usual Great-horned Owl pair.
What made it interesting, was to actually see both of them together.
Managed a few, ahem, let's be charitable and call them, dark noisy
blurry images shot through double pane glass... Here are 2 of the
"better" photos:
"The Great Horned Owl – large, powerful, and long-lived – is adapted by
its anatomy, physiology, and behavior to survive in any climate but
arctic-alpine regions. Equally at home in desert, grassland, suburban,
and forest habitats, north to the tree line, it has a diverse prey base
and the most extensive range with the most variation in nesting sites of
any American owl."
I've read that Great-horned Owls are one of the most fearsome avian
predators around. Like many owl species, they have phenomenal sight and
hearing, at the expense or benefit of poor smell. These Great-horned are
so fearsome, that they will easily take prey their own size, including
skunks. From Cornell's species description:
"Takes an exceptionally wide variety of prey, ranging in size from
scorpions and small rodents to larger hares and rabbits; also large
birds such as ducks, geese, and herons."
