Life Reflections

We have some new family friends at our home!  We discovered a few weeks ago that we have a family of Great Horned owls living in the cedar tree about 10 feet from our back door and driveway.  There is a Huge Female (yet to have a photo of), a smaller male, and at least one baby.  I think there might be another.  Since we discovered the nest I have done lots of research about this furry friend and learned that it is the second largest owl in the country.  That is right.  The mom is huge with a wing span of about 4-5 feet.  Unfortunatly we only see her late at night as she is rarely in the nest.  Maybe she is the dad but they say that the female is larger than the male.  We spotted the first baby last week and the parents have not been there near as much since.  IT is kind of freaky so see the adults looking at you with thier large scary yellow eyes.  Today I got some good pics of the baby and possibly another baby and thought I would share.  They really are cool to learn about.  The boys like looking too but I do not let them close because they are known to be fiercly protective of their young.  I do not blame them. 

Here are the pics.  If you would like know more about this breed of owl and our friends ask away in the comment section and I will anwser away.

This is a photo of a full grown one. I "borrowed" the image from the world bird sanctuary website as I can not seem to get a full body shot.

This is the smaller of the two grown owls. He/She was in the nest and I was directly under looking up. He peered over the side of the nest to look at me so all I got was the head. Freaky Huh!

This is the baby owl on about the 4th or 5th day since we first saw. I think I might see another little furball on the left side of the photo that might be another baby. I have learned that the eggs can hatch up to 4 days apart.

Unfortunatly, in yesterdays wind most of the nest was broken apart. Baby looks a bit scared hanging on to the branch and seems to hover right into the trunk of the tree.

Here is the tree that the nest is in. The writing shows where the nest is in the tree, about 25-30 feet up right in the center next to the trunk.

to show just how close this tree is to the driveway and door.

I really like this image of baby looking at me. He sort of looks like a raccoon. He blinks a lot if you watch him.