We had an unexpected visitor today. I was getting my coffee, and I heard Canes Minor making a weird noise, a low growling deep in her throat. She was sitting by the sliding glass door to the back yard, vigilantly patrolling for squirrels, I assumed. But she’s more of a spastic barker and whiner when she sees prey, so this was obviously different. She was looking up into the neighbor’s tree. I scooched down to look in the same direction, and to my surprise I saw this fellow:
Wow! We’ve seen all manners of birds around here, but this was our first owl. I think it’s a Great Horned Owl, though I’m no expert. I trolled through google images and found pictures that are very similar to our visitor.
Not everyone was happy to see him, though. This guy was ticked:
That’s a blue jay, and he was not thrilled to have a predator in his territory. He was screeching and looking all "get out of my grill", and the owl made quite the show of ignoring him.
We’ve had quite a bit of snow so I’m not sure how successful the owl will be in catching breakfast, but I’m hoping for him. I’d like to see more of this in my back yard!
December 15th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Beautiful creature.
Be careful though, the owls are not what they seem.
December 15th, 2007 at 10:38 am
Canes Minor? Did you mean Canis Minor? Just kidding.
December 15th, 2007 at 10:39 am
A healthy predator is a sign of a healthy ecosystem.
Take it as a good omen (tho we -DON’T- believe in such, eh?) for the new year! I hope he gets a nice juicy mouse!
Rich
December 15th, 2007 at 11:03 am
What a gorgeous fellow!!!
December 15th, 2007 at 11:06 am
Looks more like a Screech Owl, BA, although it’s hard to tell ’cause its looking over its back. Could be a Western or Eastern Screech Owl, though, because they overlap in your area. Certainly not a bird you’d often see in Rohnert Park, though…
December 15th, 2007 at 11:06 am
I think the winter snow might actually help the owl in his hunting, as less available food for mice will make them more desperate, meaning they’re more likely to do something stupid and dangerous in their quest for food. Though I studied history in college, so my opinion on this doesn’t mean a whole lot.
December 15th, 2007 at 11:17 am
Lucky it wasn’t Ursa Major. We’ve had lots of those where i live, this year!
December 15th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
That’s definitely a Great Horned Owl. The first picture is a dead giveaway. And a Screech Owl would be no bigger than the Blue Jay. GHOs are crepuscular owls, so it may be more likely that he was trying to find a place to nap rather than a meal to eat. Corvids like Blue Jays and also American Crows tend to make a gigantic fuss about predatory birds in their turf, and will even mob owls and hawks en masse to drive them away.
December 15th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Hopefully you don’t leave the dogs out at night, right? A great horned owl could, if it were desperate, kill a small dog or cat. Mostly they would eat owls, but a friend and I saw a fox that looked like it was killed by an owl once.
Mostly they stay well hidden during the day. Most likely got driven out by crows and is looking for someplace else to hide.
Pretty cool, though.
December 15th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Great Horned Owl, yes. Screech Owl, no — someone must have gotten a package instead of just a letter.
Sorry…all the good biological comments have already been taken so I had to settle for the cheap HP joke.
December 15th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
There’s a great grey owl that lives in the woods near my house. We see the odd snowy in the winter although none so far this year. Never seen a GHO but they do live around here.
Good job getting a camera on it!
December 15th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
I’ve never seen the local blue jays hounding the local hawks, but I have seen the local crows dive-bombing them when they’ve spent too much time in the crows’ territory.
December 15th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Superb! You’re lucky to have such esteemed visitors where you live. All I have are pigeons crapping on my laundry. There are also some geese and swans on the canals nearby, I suppose I should be happy they’re not doing the crapping
Owls are nature’s stealth attack fighters. Almost as cool as bats.
December 15th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Did owls evolve, or were they intelligently designed? Maybe I’ll ask someone from Texas.
December 15th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Will. M, That is a Great Horned Owl, not a Screech Owl. A Screech Owl is only a bit bigger than a Blue Jay (twice as big at the most). The owl in the pic is alot bigger than the Jay. In my area there are 2 type of owls this size (that I know of). The Great Horned Owl and the Barred Owl. That is not a Barred Owl, because of the prominent “horns” (Which Barred Owls don’t have). BTW, I have never seen owls in the daytime like that. That has got to be rare.
December 15th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
I have an owl too.
They’re great. I also have a … I think it’s a hawk.
I got pictures of it eating a chickadee in my tree. It was so gross! Haha.
December 15th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
> Christian X Burnhamon wrote:
> Be careful though, the owls are not what they seem.
LOL!
Now _that_ was a great tv show, *sigh*!
^_^J.
December 15th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
What a nice taste of the wild to have in sight of your home. I’m glad you appreciate it.
For awhile there was a barn owl roosting at my former workplace, on an outside sprinkler pipe just under the loading dock overhang. He (?)
presumably hunted at night in the vacant fields to the east and south. I liked having him around, but management was less than enthusiastic about the sizable guano deposits on the concrete and, occasionally, parked trailers. The owl moved on, fate unknown, before a definite policy was decided.
December 16th, 2007 at 1:07 am
You are correct on the owl (as others have noted) but I believe that’s a Stellar’s Jay. The pictures sort of small, but it looks like it has a black head with a tufted crest. The true Blue Jay lives further east than you are, I think. Of course, I’m no birder and am willing to be corrected.
- Jack
December 16th, 2007 at 2:25 am
The owl is definitely a Great Horned Owl (as others have said), but he won’t be hunting mice; he’s going for something on the order of a rabbit.
The smaller bird is hard to identify; the best bet seems to either be a blue jay or a Stellar’s jay, but that band of white on its neck muddies the waters somewhat, as neither of those birds has that. Phil, what did the call sound like? See if you can put it in “words.” That would help a great deal.
-Carl
December 16th, 2007 at 8:13 am
As has been said, owls are not day hunters. Probably resting after a strenuous night of hunting rats, mice, rabbits, feral cats and small dogs.
I’ll never forget one night (around 4 am). I was driving home. A great horned owl crossed the road at windshield level about 10 meters in front of my car! Those suckers are BIG! One meter+ wingspan! Woke me right up!
December 16th, 2007 at 8:17 am
great for hunting the local gophers too! enjoy.
December 16th, 2007 at 8:25 am
we here in northern indiana are seeing more red tailed hawks, it makes me smile to know this area of homes and factories has some balance in it creatures and habitats
December 16th, 2007 at 8:45 am
My guess would be a Steller’s because its breat appears to be dark and a blue’s breast is light. I figure the white on the neck is an artifact of the photo. I believe Boulder is out of range for blue jays, but that sort of thing is dynamic.
We recently had a lengthy and interesting thread on a birding list about the larger owls taking small dogs and cats and they are capable of it. A favorite food of the great horned is skunk.
These critters will also attack humans who get too close to their nest.
Seeing owls in daylight is not that unusual. Look at all the great photos of them mostly taken in daylight.
Tom in Baton Rouge
December 16th, 2007 at 11:03 am
They are around; if you keep your eyes open, you see all manner of critters about at this time of the year.
Just last week, at the beginning of all this snow, I was walking the Boulder Creek path by the University during my lunch hour and saw a small hawk try to nab a fox squirrel. It was right off the side of the path, on the bank between the path and the river, which was just starting to show some of the ice sheath that it’s showing now. The hawk just suddenly swooped in from over the creek and dropped. The squirrel obviously flipped out and escaped in just the nick of time, probably as those talons snapped closed; he made for a tree at maximum impulse power and did the squirrel thing, circling the trunk to keep it between himself and the hawk. The hawk actually chased him by flying up into the tree and standing over him. I watched them in a stand-off for a couple minutes. The squirrel was hiding in a spot where the branches were too close together to admit the hawk’s wingspan, so the bird couldn’t get at the rodent. Eventually, the hawk got sick of waiting and took off down the stream. He might’ve been unhappy with me watching.
If you keep your eyes open in Boulder Colorado, you actually can see a lot of this sort of thing!
December 16th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
I’m in Denver and have plenty of blue jays. I haven’t seen a Steller’s here yet (but have only lived in Denver a few months).
There’s a GHO in my neighborhood too — I hear it often at night, but haven’t spotted it yet. It’s so cool that one can find owls even in urban environments! (My best example so far has been seeing a family of young screech owls in a neighborhood near downtown Houston.)
Fabulous shot, Phil, thanks for sharing!
December 17th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
GHO is the most likely. I had one in my back yard one winter, sitting on the ground while my somewhat smaller cockapoo mutt ran around it barking & posturing, no response from the owl but it was daytime & he was likely well fed, luckily for the mutt. It spent some days in the 50 ft poplars in the neighbourhood before moving on, I imagine here were fewer cats in the area than when he arrived. During the summer the trees were nesting sites for doves & smaller songbirds, magpies but I saw few owls & hawks in the area back then (1970′s). Local farmers (souithern Alberta prairie) have since cut down shelter belts that had provided owls & hawks with nesting/resting sites so they have become more common in urban areas with tall trees & small mammals in the back yards. Cool Yule, all!
April 6th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Hi everyone,
I had my first experience of seeing an owl (outside of the zoo) while at work the other day. I work in Astoria, Queens NY. Near Steinway Street and Broadway; a highly populated and metropolitan area. I went outside on my lunchbreak and was sitting on the steps of a nearby building. All of a sudden I noticed this big brown bird flying across the street. It landed on the fire escape across the street from where I was sitting. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I did a double take and then put on my glasses and walked closer. It was definitely an owl. My first impression was that it was a Great Horned Owl. It had the tufts sticking straight up and the typical owl head that swiveled around. It was amazing. I was so excited to see it. It was such a rare honor to witness such an animal in that environment and in broad daylight. I have always loved owls and admired their beauty. I kept watching it, but a motorcyclist came down the block and spooked it. It flew off. What a sight. The building whose fire escape it landed on has a pigeon coop on the roof, so maybe he/she was getting ready for lunch. Anyway, I have seen some hawks around here, but never a Great Horned Owl. I am still in awe.
Just thought I’d share.
Cynthia