Woohooo! Finally got some pictures of the Great Horned Owl and it's chicks.
We've been watching the nest, if you'll pardon the pun - like hawks (pun explanation - hawks lived there for the last two years).
When we moved to the ranch two years ago, a pair of esting hawks was in residence at this nest and nested there last year as well. There were owls nesting on the property, they were in a stand of trees about 200 yards down creek from what we knew as the "hawk's nest tree".
This year, we couldn't quite tell who was living there, although we were pretty certain it wasn't the hawks.
Last weekend we talked to an Audubon bird guy who said he'd been monitoring the nest for several years, that it had originally been built by Great Horned Owls and that they were back in residence this year. He went on to say, that he thought he'd seen one of the adult owls at the nest and at least one chick.
Anyway, with the nice weather today (sunny and not much wind) I thought I'd take a trip to that corner of the ranch and see what I could see ....
To give you kind of an idea of the size of the tree and the nest, what looks like a "glob" of branches, kind of in the middle left of the picture is the nest. I was on the top of a hill, maybe 200 yards away? I'm not too good with distances, so that 200 yard estamate is totally a "best guess".
Moved further down the hill and changed the angle from which I was taking pictures. You can barely see one of the chicks just to the right of the adult and that might be a chick right behind the adult.
Better picture of the adult.
Great Horned Owls are amazing!
Adult and two chicks
Not a great picture of the adult, better picture of the chicks - aren't they cute?!!
Make no mistake, they could tear your face off.
Better picture of the family, although I don't think the chick on the far left heard when I said "smile! it's picture time" .....
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