8 replies to this topic

[goofy166]

Great Horned Owl

[Paulac]

Great horned owls eat a wide variety of prey, both small and large. Cottontail rabbits seem to be a prominent food, but the owls will take squirrels, shrews, jackrabbits, muskrats, mice, weasels, skunks, pocket gophers, snakes, domestic cats, bats, beetles, scorpions, frogs, grasshoppers, and a wide variety of birds, from small passerines like juncos and sparrows to wild ducks, grouse, pheasants, and even other owls.

[Shane Mercer]

I have been trying to track down a Great Horned Owl for a long time. For being one of the largest and most widespread, I cannot for the life of me find one. I think I'm going to end up getting a Snowy first. As far as I'm concerned these guys are invisible.

[Seattle]

Sorry you haven't seen one.  If it's any help we've been chasing snowy owls for two years and haven't seen one yet.  We've seen two GH owls this year so far.  We checked out a terrific nest last weekend and it looks like she's sitting on eggs.  We'll be visiting the nest every few weeks to see how she's doing and I'll post pics if she lets us see her.  I posted pictures of her "horns"!!

[GreatHorn]

I was fortunate enough to see a pair of GH Owls in the wild. Two years ago, I was walking through the woods nearby my house in West Michigan. I saw a large, feathery bird fly silently overhead in a small clearing in the forest. Curious, I walked along the trail and searched through the tops of the pine trees. Then, I saw two ear tufts poking out from a nest 30 feet high. The couple was nesting in an old crow nest in a pine tree, as Great Horns are known to do. Oddly enough, this was in the middle of the city, and it wasn't in a very large forest at all. From that point, I visited them very often, just to have the female stare at me from inside the nest, and occasionally seeing the male flying around at dusk. Weeks later, I walked into the woods and saw the owlets squirming and the female glaring at me from the branch next to the nest. It was a magnificent sight.

[noahcomet]

greypaper:

I have been trying to track down a Great Horned Owl for a long time. For being one of the largest and most widespread, I cannot for the life of me find one. I think I'm going to end up getting a Snowy first. As far as I'm concerned these guys are invisible.

 

Greypaper, do you know about eBird.org ?  I rely on that site ALL the time.  Looks like someone named Colin Talcroft just saw a GHO at Spring Lake County Park, not far from where you are.  This was just two days ago.  In situations like this, I usually post to the local community birding website or listserv (--I imagine there's one for your area--) or, in some cases, I'll even see if the person who's posted the eBird sighting is google-able or on Facebook and I'll contact him/her directly.  Whenever I've done this, I've found that people are generally more than happy to share the location details.

For what it's worth, I've seen 3 or 4 different GHOs over the years (and seen them on several different occasions), but only when I've been given very specific directions on where to look.  In one instance, a friendly passerby had to walk me to the site, position me in the right place, point me in the right direction and I STILL had trouble seeing the Owl.  Once I did see it, I couldn't believe I'd missed it, but they are indeed masters of camouflage. Ask the naturalists at your local metroparks---if there's a nest on the premises, they might be willing to show you where it is.  And listen for the sound of mobbing crows and jays---although it's never happened for me, I know lots of people who've been led to roosting GHOs by the sounds of angry songbirds.

 Happy hunting!

[zoutedrop]

I enjoyed this story.  I was told that Great Horned, when rescued, very quickly adopt their rescuer.  

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTjS6Hwt5yA    

[Ladybird52]

I was lucky enough this year that we were told about two nesting sights and got to watch both sets of baby's grow up. I am hopeful to go back to the second nest before too long to see how big they are. I have a five photo's of one pair over a months spans..so cool to watch them grow up.

[Channy3232]

I just have a question about GH owls. Hoping someone can answer. For about 5 years now, about once a month, sometimes more frequently, we can hear one somewhere close to our house. Sometimes so loud I could hear it over our TV. A few times we've heard two at a time. But we've never seen one around. Today we went for a walk at a little trail along the creek by our house. And wouldn't you know it, there's a GH owl! This trail is, by air, about 1/2 mile from our house. It's on the other side of train tracks and a pretty big housing development. Could this be one of "our" birds? How big of a territory do they normally have?