Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: very large owl

Not to mention that I ended the day with a Moose, lol! Yesterday, 27 July 2013, was a good day and enjoyable, though I am paying the price today with an extremely painful body! A group of us met at Sarah Leete's again (first time was on 15th July 2013), to do a BioBlitz along the E side of the Perrenoud Wildlife Reserve, NW of Calgary. This means that an extensive list is made of all flora and fauna seen during the day. I wasn't expecting the walk/hike to be quite so far! The drive from home to Sarah's takes about an hour and a half, but I allowed a bit of extra time as I never know what traffic will be like. As it turned out, I was half an hour early - and this is what I saw! A beautiful Great Gray Owl, hunting for breakfast. It didn't stay for long, but I got two or three shots that I'll keep. I was really, really hoping that it would stay where it was till the rest of the group arrived, but it ended up flying off into the trees in the distance. After our hike, I drove along a few of the roads up in the NW and then came home via a few of the backroads SW of the city. The very last thing I was lucky enough to see was a beautiful Moose, feeding behind a row of trees near the edge of the road. I was hoping she would stroll out into the open, but no, she just keep feeding on the leaves. Fascinating to watch her eat, stretching up to reach the leaves that were way over her head. My presence didn't seem to both her at all and she only gave me a couple of stares. No good photos of her, but I'll probably pick out the "best" one and post it sometime. Today is a home day - I have no choice, not being able to move any part of me without feeling great pain, lol. Part of this was the result of having to walk along a very long Beaver dam - the most uneven surface you can imagine, never sure of whether you were going to disappear into the hidden water on either side of the very narrow, overgrown strip. And then, when we finally reached the other end, we discovered that there was just no way we could make our way ahead, crossing the various loops of the Grand Valley Creek. So, we had to retrace our very unstable steps along the dam again. The weather is overcast and dreary today, but yesterday was beautiful. One of those rare days this spring and summer without any rain!! It was a 13-hour day, driving 263 km. Tomorrow, I have a morning and an afternoon trip, both NW of the city again.

This beautiful Great Gray Owl was a little different from most of the Great Grays that I see. Somehow, its eyes didn't seem as vibrantly yellow - no idea if this could be an age thing. I wondered if it might be one of last year's young ones, also because it didn't seem quite as "relaxed" as Great Grays tend to be. It seemed to be a little more curious, perhaps. I had spent a long time trying to spot one of these magnificent birds of prey on 5 May 2013, and had just given up, trying not to feel too disappointed (yeah, right!) at seeing nothing but a Raven and a Killdeer on my long drive. Two minutes later, I rounded a bend in the road and caught sight of this owl perched on a fence post way ahead of me. Amazing how the sight of one of the large owls changes ones emotions in a split second : ) It stayed perched there for quite a while, at one point getting into this pose, which made my heart miss a beat. There's just something about when an owl is looking right at you and does this - maybe it's the size of those very powerful talons, lol? It often means that the owl is about to fly, but this time it just straightened itself up. It eventually flew over to my side of the road and moved to a couple of trees. Thank you, Owl, for making my day! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Grey_Owl www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Great_Gray_Owl/id