Preening her feathers

Late afternoon yesterday, 22 April 2015, after a volunteer shift, I called in at a local park to see the Great Horned Owl family. I hadn't been over there for a week, so I was curious to see if much had changed with them. Not a whole lot, though Mom, like Dad, was perched in a nearby Spruce tree. With Great Horned Owls, the adults tend to be sitting still for most of the daytime hours, so it's always a treat when one of them actually moves, even if it's just a minute or two of preening.

This is Mom in my photo. She is a busy Mom with three young ones to care for. Dad has always been sitting in one of the nearby trees, keeping careful watch over his mate and owlets. He has been hunting at night and bringing food to the rest of his family. As owlets get bigger and bigger, the female tends to leave the nest to hunt for food, too. Females are larger than males, so can catch larger, heavier prey to feed to her quickly growing young ones.

"With its long, earlike tufts, intimidating yellow-eyed stare, and deep hooting voice, the Great Horned Owl is the quintessential owl of storybooks. This powerful predator can take down birds and mammals even larger than itself, but it also dines on daintier fare such as tiny scorpions, mice, and frogs. It’s one of the most common owls in North America, equally at home in deserts, wetlands, forests, grasslands, backyards, cities, and almost any other semi-open habitat between the Arctic and the tropics.

Great Horned Owls are nocturnal. You may see them at dusk sitting on fence posts or tree limbs at the edges of open areas, or flying across roads or fields with stiff, deep beats of their rounded wings. Their call is a deep, stuttering series of four to five hoots." From AllAboutBirds.

www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Great_Horned_Owl/id

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_horned_owl