This morning I explored a new area, and I found this Great Gray Owl. This sequence of images shows its successful hunt. Given the dark conditions I was not able to get many flight shots, but it was fun to watch.
First found … thankfully atop a pine (easily viewable)
Intense Concentration … vole underneath the snow
Strike! (Great Gray Owls hunt using their ears to hear mice and voles running underneath the snow)
Breakfast (in the cropped close-up you are able to see the vole’s tail)
Typical Flight Show (away from me with a busy background)
Hunting anew … well camouflaged
Three years ago in the winter while out owling I found a huge grove of crabapples. Ever since, each winter I always check the grove for birds. Eventually it will become a magnet for winter finches and other birds. This winter is no different. I first checked the crabapple grove about one month ago … no birds. Yesterday afternoon I returned and hit the jackpot … over 150 pine grosbeaks, 70+ Bohemian Waxwings, and one Northern Shrike (it eats songbirds and mice). A few images from the crabapple grove.
Bohemian Waxwing (big cousin of Cedar Waxwings … live up in the Canadian Boreal Forest in the Summer)
Northern Shrike
Pine Grosbeaks
