Yesterday I posted an image of a male Great Horned Owl. This owl lives down in the NW suburbs of the Twin Cities. As noted it dumbfounded me by perching right out in the open at 10:30 in the morning.

Today I am posting a photo of my northern friend which lives in the Duluth area … 180 miles to the north of my southern owl. I visited him at 3:30 this afternoon, and even though I had a pretty good idea where to look due to prior visits, it took me over 10 minutes of scanning with my binoculars to find said owl. As you can see, Mr. Great Horned Owl is pretty bored with me. I hung around for ten minutes once I found him, and he never once looked directly at me! Apparently my Norwegian stocking cap does not look like a squirrel.

I will repost yesterday’s image. While it could be that my southern owl was in direct sunlight while my northern bird was in heavy shade, but “sunshine bird” appears to be much lighter in color. Given the number of pine trees in the Twin Cities area is dramatically fewer than up north here in Duluth, this could be “natural selection” in terms of better camouflage against all the deciduous trees. Interesting to speculate. Remember, the male does all the hunting for the family until the young are quite large. Better camouflage would be an asset.