Soon the “Butcher Bird” will leave us for points further north. The Northern Shrike gets is nickname for various reasons … perhaps because it breaks the neck of its prey … or perhaps because it impales its prey on barbed wire (think storage for future consumptions). This bird attacks birds almost its same size. In short this is a bird with an attitude!
Northern Shrike this morning in Sax-Zim Bog
These images were taken 18 hours apart …
These first two photos were taken just as our storm was starting up yesterday afternoon.
The final two images of my Great Horned Owl couple were taken around 9 am this morning. Our storm is definitely still in progress … about 10 inches of snow has fallen so far and the winds gusted to 48 mph last night according to the weather service. Neither Momma or Poppa Owl look to happy.
Finally, here is a pic of my own road as I started out on my owl hike this morning. You may notice that there are no car tracks in the road this morning. The snow was falling at a rate of 7/10 of an inch per hour while I was out on my hike.
There are not one, but two Great Horned Owls in this photograph (press or click upon to maximize)! This afternoon during our snowstorm (8 to 10 inches of white stuff expected by tomorrow morning) I found the nest of my local owls for the 5th year in a row!
These GHO’s make it difficult. I took over 25 hikes after dark over the past month following my local hoot. I was convinced over the past two nights due some “soft quiet warbling hoots” that I was close to finding the nest. This afternoon during our snowstorm I went out hiking during the day, and checked out well over 50 white pines in the forest. Finally I found the male, but it took a trip home to clean up my fogged up glasses and dry off my binoculars before upon my 2nd hike and about another 5 minutes of searching that I found the nest. Given our present snow depth is a couple of feet deep, and I was never on a trail, conditions were not ideal. Obviously photography conditions were not good, but I am ecstatic. (email subscribers see videos of both the male and female during today’s storm).