We had an unexpected visitor today. I was getting my coffee, and I heard Canes Minor making a weird noise, a low growling deep in her throat. She was sitting by the sliding glass door to the back yard, vigilantly patrolling for squirrels, I assumed. But she's more of a spastic barker and whiner when she sees prey, so this was obviously different. She was looking up into the neighbor's tree. I scooched down to look in the same direction, and to my surprise I saw this fellow:
Wow! We've seen all manners of birds around here, but this was our first owl. I think it's a Great Horned Owl, though I'm no expert. I trolled through google images and found pictures that are very similar to our visitor. Not everyone was happy to see him, though. This guy was ticked:
That's a blue jay, and he was not thrilled to have a predator in his territory. He was screeching and looking all "get out of my grill", and the owl made quite the show of ignoring him. We've had quite a bit of snow so I'm not sure how successful the owl will be in catching breakfast, but I'm hoping for him. I'd like to see more of this in my back yard!
