Superbowl

Photo by Harold Wilion

>Peek-A-Boo > >Sorry, you folks with the cellphones (pretty much everyone) might have to enlarge the image just to see the owl, but thought the photo said more than if cropped tight.

Photo by Mike Lentz

>Here is another Northern Saw Whet Owl in a different natural nest cavity. > >This was probably the most rewarding spring in my nature photography journey! Working with a few other friends to accomplish many things that required a little knowledge, skill or just plain hard work. > >This mother stayed on her nest of four babies for approximately 18 days - just like what the books say... can confirm that is accurate first hand! Then dad came in and fed them daily until they fledged!

White Faced Scops stops in to visit The resident at the Owl Rescue Centre

>Found this little fella perched on a shelf in our clinic this morning. He isn't a patient, just a visitor checking in on a family member. > >Our windows are made of shadenet with roll down canvas blinds and the one has an opening in where he flew in. > >It happens almost weekly with all our different species.

White Faced Scops was winner of the first Owl of the Year, but will it be able to hold onto the crown again this year?

Photos by Scott Winkler

>I have been hearing a Great Horned Owl hooting since winter. A couple of evenings ago I saw him sunning himself in our backyard and then he flew to a branch along the woods. I took all 200 pics of him from our deck!! He was very photogenic giving me many profiles!

Here's a cool pic of a Snowy cruising along the shoreline.

I'm headed off to the beach myself for the rest of the month, so I didn't know what time posts will be going up, but I've got a bunch stockpiled already and I'll surely keep finding new stuff every day.

I don't like the hot so much, so I'll be making plenty of time to sit indoors and scroll for owls and respond to your questions and comments.

just came across this really cool photo of a barn owl being errrrrr run off this little guy's property?! what an absolute chad who has absolutely no idea how big he is :>

check out the link - there are some other photos from the same set:

https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/591235181

From National Geographic

This was from a photo contest.

I couldn't find any interesting facts on them, but they sure are cute!

We've had a ton of great Buffy Fish Owl pics on here since it's great showing in Owl of the Year, but I think this is the first one I've come across where it's actually in the air!

Photo by Dan Kev

Photos by Guilong Charles Chen

>I had a unique experience with this barred owl while I was in the woods. I didn't see her until I was way too close. We locked eyes for a few seconds, and then she flew straight toward me and passed me by inches. My shutter speed wasn't fast enough to freeze the wings, but I rather enjoy the blurred effect. That face! I was in heaven.

Finally got to make a return visit to the first owl rehab I visited. The Raptor Trust is a nice medical and rehab facility in northern NJ.

It's a great facility to look around, but picture taking is absolutely terrible. They have very fine netting on all the enclosures. Most of my pics look like this, no matter how hard I tried.

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I'll share a few I got where you can actually see the birds. The post picture is of the most beautiful Barred Owl they had, Sonny.

From the Owl Research Institute

>We're excited to share that our ongoing project on predation and nesting outcomes in Short-eared Owls in the Mission Valley is yielding some promising results! This year we have located over 30 Short-eared Owl nests (NEW RECORD). > >This year's breeding season began early and continues to produce more nests. We anticipate finding a few more before the season ends! > >The breeding season for Short-eared Owls extends from March through July and August. During this crucial period, please be mindful of ground-nesting birds and avoid disturbing their habitats. Many nests fail and birds are klled due to mowing, haying, grazing. herbicide application, and spring burning. Young birds just learning how to fly can often be hit by cars so please drive cautiously on back roads.

Photo 1: Short-eared Owl chick after banding (approx 5 weeks old)

Photo by Kevin Eisler

I love seeing owls with different color plumage!

This owl is from Manitoba, so coming from a different climate, it has a different color than more southern GHOs.

There is such an endless variety of owls!

Photos by Randy Bennett

Photo by Brian Santos

From Wikipedia:

>The Philippine scops owl is a fairly small-to-mid-sized species of owl, but is arguably the largest true species of scops owl. Adults measure from 23 to 28 cm (9.1 to 11.0 in). Their body mass can range from 125 to 310 g (4.4 to 10.9 oz), with females often considerably larger than males.

From Ojai Raptor Center

>Sometimes, you just need to take a load off. Take an example from this little Great Horned Owl baby relaxing in our incubator, waiting for room service to bring his meal, and take it easy this weekend.

Photo by Harold Wilion

>I find it amazing how owls, both young and old, love climbing or flying to the very top of a tree where they don't even have enough room to put both feet. There are millions of horizontal branches in the woods where they could just stand with no effort, but they insist on perching on these spikes where even the slightest breeze makes them flap around trying to maintain their balance. Maybe to them it's just a game. A game I love to watch seeing that I'm the kind of guy that has trouble standing on a sidewalk without tumbling over.

Great set of photos of a Barn Owl on the hunt.

Photos by Trevor Stutter

>A Barn Owl near the Suffolk coast in the UK. It's the first time l've photographed one with prey and it was out and about for about two and a half hours and caught about 8 voles taking them back to its nest somewhere on the other side of the field.

Photos from Cody Julie Davis

>I recently came upon a rather precarious scene, flushed up about 15 Crows and as I drew closer an Owl shot up out of the tall grass and landed in a nearby tree. I'm assuming the Crows had it cornered and were beating it up. The Owl stretched and tried to dry out, and upon taking off for the trees a few Crows were back after it. I was thinking maybe this was a juvenile and it exposed itself too much and the Crows took advantage. I hope things worked out!

Photo by Simon Wardle

>Barred Owlet checking out what all the fuss is about outside the darkness.

In the recent post about UV aging a bird, one of the things that came up is the brood patch, which I don't think we've covered yet.

Owls will remove a patch of down to both insulate the nest and to get better heat conduction with the eggs.

From the Owl Research Institute

>The first time I saw a brood patch - especially visible on a Snowy Owl - I was mystified and concerned. It just didn't look right. I went on to learn that it is exactly right - a perfectly developed adaptation to ensure that eggs are incubated properly. An especially relevant issue in the Arctic. > >Female Snowy Owls will lay three to eleven white eggs on a ground nest. The number of eggs depends on how much food is available in a given season. Snowy Owls have an instinctive sense of how many chicks lemming numbers can support. For example, if an area's vole population is high, a female Snowy Owl might lay nine eggs. If the vole population is low, she might lay just three eggs, or she may not nest at all. > >Eggs are usually laid two to three days apart. They will hatch in this same order. During the incubation period, the female loses the feathers on her belly in order to transfer more body heat to the eggs. This is called a brood patch and she presses this warm, bare skin against the eggs. She lies on the nest in the incubation position, with her head low and stomach down, keeping the eggs warm all the time. Extra blood vessels infuse this patch of skin with extra warmth enabling the female Snowy to act as a warm blanket over her clutch of eggs. > >When Snowy Owls lay eggs on their Arctic breeding grounds, it is often still frozen and even ice covered. To see eggs - something that needs to be constantly warm in order to develop - in the harshness of an Arctic landscape seems like an impossible combination. But Snowy Owls - with the help of their brood patch - certainly have it down.

Photo by Simon Wardle

Photos by Gerry Uchutil

Some nice photos of Burrowing Owls.

Photo from Glen Helen

It's important for releasable weeks animals to not think of humans as safe because it can hurt they're chances in survival or encourage them to get into dangerous situations.

While caring for animals, they can become dependant on humans and lose their fear of us, so caregivers will disguise themselves well enough the animals will not associate their treatment with people.

Many disguises are dark netting or other very simple things to obscure the human outline, and sometimes puppets can be used, but I came across these outfits which show off some fun creativity.

From Southern Virginia Wildlife Center of Roanoke

These anti imprinting masks go above and beyond many efforts I've seen for artistic quality!

Short video at the link, but it's Facebook and I know you guys hate that. 😤. Hence the screen caps.

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From The Raptor Center

>Glimpse into the Glow. > >When we recently admitted a young great horned owl, we broke out the black light to take a quick look at its feathers under ultra violet (UV) ight. Why? The pink glow can help us confirm the ow's age. We know this is a bird in its first year of life because all of its wing flight feathers are glowing pink. The glow comes from proteins in new feathers called porphyrins. Under UV light, these porphyrins are fluorescent and visible to the human eye. > >As feathers age, these pigments break down and the pink color subsides. The only time all of the feathers are new is when a bird gets its very first set of feathers. As these birds age, they only molt a few flight feathers each year, leading to uneven amounts of pink in older birds. > >While we know that owls don't have UV-sensitive cone cells in their eyes like diurnal birds, research shows that they can still detect UV light. There is no definitive answer as to the purpose behind the fluorescence of new feathers; however, it possibly conveys important information between owls in the wild. > >It's worth noting that the majority of animals can see in the ultraviolet light spectrum, meaning humans inability to do so is an exception and not the standard. How do you think UV vision would change the way we see our world?

Link has a video if you want to see more feathers glowing, but there's no talking or text beyond what's above here.

Photo by chinn

>Got to my location at 5.45am and this guy was waiting for me on the side of the road. .Couldn't believe it. While driving that far, you always question whether it's going to be worth it. Well didn't have to wait very long to find out it was . pulled up into lay-by opposite slowly and opened the window and took some shots. The weather wasn't great and it was foggy when I took this, while rain was on and off for the 4 hours it was there. BUT.. What an incredible morning it was though. I've been lucky enough to see and photograph the 5 UK species (not including eagles). I think long eared owls are definitely my favourite. Look at those eyes.

I'm a big fan of the American Long Eared Owls, and I love getting reminded that the European ones are a bit different looking.

Photo by Chris Labbe

Photos by Harold Wilion

>I thought I could wean myself off the Barred owls and start getting into other species, but realize that's a much more difficult task than originally thought. I love all owls. find Screech owls to be the cutest and they have the most expressive faces. I love the pizazz of a Great Horned owl. But find the almost mythical, mystical aspect of Barred owls really touches my soul. The eyes of the Screech owl are beautiful. The piercing eyes of the Great horned owl are amazing. But those big, dark eyes of the Barred owl just make me wonder exactly what's going on behind them. > >The Barred owls I'm used to photographing just seem so incredibly mellow and will often be surprised to find myself just feet from one chilling on a low branch where they may look at me for a few moments before closing their eyes again as I quietly try to create some distance between us. For me, it's an otherworldly, almost religious experience to be in the presence of these marvelous creatures. > >I didn't want to spend any more time trying to pick a favorite shot on this perch, so figured l'd upload a set.

Photos by Jennil Modar

Photo by Baba-Vulic Aleksandar

>Sometimes you just have to make the most of it when you're caught in a downpour without an umbrella. The newly fledged Great Horned Owlet 'singing" in the rain.

Photo by Chris Labbe

Photos by Bryce Gaudian

Fort Pierre National Grasslands in South Dakota

Photos by Heather Farrell

>Great Horned Owl taking in the sunset

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Photos by Rick McCulley

>The Red morph screech owl in the same tree as the grey morph was in... I think this one is the female and the grey that I posted yesterday was the male. East Tennessee

Photos by Charon Comeau

>As photographers we focus on the perfect shot, myself included, always looking for that perfect picture! I was focused on the baby at the top because he was a clear shot! I decided to zoom out and take in the whole picture. Dad and three owlets (back when they were about 8 weeks old). The fourth owlet was above them and mom was in a tree just out of the frame.

Photos by Randy Herman

>This little Screech owlet wasn't sure what to make of this curious Red-bellied Woodpecker.

Photo by Denis Michaluszko He's hiding the wrong way... 😁

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Photo By Aleksi Rautiainen

Snowy enjoying the sun.