Thursday, February 14, 2013

Back Yard Visitor...

Despite the yard full of owl snacks (ie, our beloved kitties), both owl and cats seemed pretty low key about our backyard stalker.  We got back into town last night, quickly jumped back into our routine here.  After a quickie Valentine's dinner before Melinda headed back to work, I returned home to spot our visitor.  I've seen a few great-horned owls in town, there used to be some resident pairs living under the stadium, but I've not seen them in our neighborhood lately.  As long as they feed on the pigeons in the front yard, and leave the cats alone, I'll be happy!  Photo was taken with Canon XSi, 70-200 lens @200mm w/1.4 extender, monopod with on-camera flash.  After a few out-of-focus shots (difficult with dim sky background and flash/autofocus didn't work with extender), I got this one and he flew off a few seconds later.  Perhaps he's a little camera shy, or more likely, put off by the flash...

1 comment:

Shannon said...

Great horned owls are VERY territorial. Mom and I went to an owl prowl in which they told us a guy was making calls back to a great horned and it came down and busted him in the neck just right and he died!