I've got my eye on you!

So, after taking pictures of them this morning I couldn't help but stop again. This time I got some pictures with their eyes open! Hope you enjoy!

Only had the energy to open one eye. 

Mr. & Mrs. Owl

Sleepy, Sleepy, Sleepy

Here's the best pictures I could get of them today.  I didn't get any pictures with their eyes open, it was way too early for them!

It's kind of hard to tell which is which but I think the male is on the left and the female is on the right.

Don't Wake Daddy!

Decided to pay a visit to the owls again today.  After searching around for them I finally found the male in a different tree than usual.  He was not too happy for me to be there, he flew to a couple different trees to get away from me but fortunately I was able to get some good pictures of him, so here a few.

He was definitely not too happy that I was there.

He is about half the size of the female and he has much more yellow in his eyes.

Sorry to Wake You!

So since my last post I have visited the owls twice.  The first time I went it was at about 6 pm so it was dark and I wasn't able to get any pictures.  I was able to hear some interesting things though.  Both of the owls were hooting and calling at each other, I assume that they were mating calls.  Since they were most likely hunting it was hard to follow them while they flew from tree to tree.  But today when I went, only one of them was there.  I haven't been able to get a good picture of the male so its hard to tell which one is which but I am pretty sure that the one I saw today was the female.  So here are the pictures I was able to get of her!

Sleepy. ZzZz

Looking right at me, had to whistle to get her attention.
Sorry for waking you up!

Pictures

Mom Owl 

Mom Owl

Baby 

I am going to work on getting good pictures of the dad this weekend!

The Beginning...

In the cold month of March this year I was walking around campus when I spotted an owl up in a tree.  I have seen owls before but never one so close in the wild.  At first glance I couldn't really tell what species of owl it was because of how far away it was.  After a while I had figured out that it was a Great Horned Owl, the biggest owl around this area. With my love for birds, I immediately become attached.  Everybody laughed when I was dedicating times of my days and weekends to go visit her and take pictures with the little cheap camera I had.  What kind of college student says "Before we go out tonight I'm gonna go see the owl"?  I guess that's just me...  I'm not sure why I was so obsessed considering every time I went there she just sat there in the tree sleeping, but I thought she was beautiful.  I had visited her numerous times during the week to just reassure myself that she was staying, and she was.  I'm sure every time she saw me walking up to the tall pine tree she was like "Oh no, shes back".  But I didn't care, I loved her! One visit in the beginning of April I went to visit her, and she was no longer alone, there were TWO owls!  I had been going everyday and had only saw one but this day there were two.  I knew that they had to be "together".   I was ecstatic, I was obsessed with just one, but now there were two!  So I continued to go every few days to see what they were up to.  They never really did anything except sit in the trees and sleep but they looked so peaceful I just loved watching them. So in about the middle of April my mom had come out for dinner and I wanted her to see what I had been so in love with the past months so I brought her to what was now "their" tree. She had a much better camera so I wanted to take so many pictures of them, and I did.  At that time of year, there were no leaves on the trees, the only hiding they had were the pines in the tree the usually sat in.  So my mom, loving birds just as much as me, just keep taking pictures of them.  It was about 5 or 6 pm so they were awake, just sitting on the branch with their big eyes open.  I might say now that I have a keen eye for birds but I turned around and in the tree across the street my eyes were immediately drawn to a little feather ball in the big oak tree.  I couldn't believe it, this lovely couple of Great Horned Owls had a baby.  It was so cute, I would say it was so little and cute but it wasn't.  Its not exactly what you expect when you think of a baby.  This baby was HUGE! Probably a little bigger than the size of a full grown duck and she was only about a month or two old.  I thought I was obsessed with these owls before but now I found out they have a baby...I might as well just have  moved there, after all I was there every day.  I spent a lot of time there, no matter how cold or windy it was, I was there taking pictures.  I saw some of the most amazing things with that baby, just watching her grow up was amazing in itself.  I saw her take flight for one of her first times, she wasn't the best at it but she was learning.  After all the only feathers she had were fluffy and white, not really equipped for flying yet.  I think that after going there so often they might have just become comfortable with me but when you get close to that baby, that mom stares you down.  It's incredible how these owls live, I always knew they ate rodents but the meals get much bigger once there is a baby involved.  I saw the mom sitting in the tree holding a duck in her giant claws ready to feed it to her youngster. One day I went back to see how they were doing and to my surprise the dad and baby had left.  Since the baby had learned how to fly and feed herself she was ready to leave home and continue her life somewhere else. I was devastated, I still enjoyed watching just the mom but it was much more fun with a little ball of downy stumbling around the treetops.  So, I went home for the summer and didn't get to see the mom for a while.

The fall semester began and of course I had to go see her...but she wasn't there.  I was actually pretty upset about it.  Because not only was she beautiful and I enjoyed watching her, sleeping most of the time, but the time visiting her was my time to relax and take in the nature surrounding her.  After about two weeks of being at school I decided to just go check again....and there she was!! I assume that I just couldn't find her the first time, but with my keen eye for owls I eventually did.  In the winter it was much easier to find her because there were no leaves and the only tree she sat in was the pine tree, so I always knew where she was.  But in the summer and fall there are plenty of leaves so I kind of have to go on a hunt to find her, but I always do now.  Once I found out that she was here, I went and bought a nicer camera so I would be able to get closer up pictures of her.  She is probably getting sick of me, considering every time I go to see her I start to hoot at her so she opens her eyes and I can take a picture.  So with all my "research" I did about Great Horned Owls I know that the male will leave their partner and come back each year to mate and raise the baby and then leave again.  Since I knew this, I kept going back to see how she was.  In the past few weeks all the leaves fell off so she relocated to her pine tree again.  So yesterday I thought, well I haven't seen the owl in a while I should probably stop by.  I walked around the forest area where she hides in the summer and I couldn't find her so I walked to the pine tree and I saw her from a distance, or what I thought was her.  I took a few pictures, thinking to myself that it was kind of weird that she was sitting on a different branch.  She always sits on the exact same branch in the same spot.  So I look up a little farther and there's another one, that one was actually her.  I freaked out, the one I thought was her was actually the dad.  HE WAS BACK!! I couldn't believe it.  He wasn't very fond of me taking billions of pictures of him. He kept turning his head every which way keeping his wide eyes on me.  

So this is where I'm starting the blog.  Since I visit them everyday I will blog about my visits and post pictures about what they are doing.  They will most likely mate in the next month or two and hopefully have a baby(or three).  So stay tuned and Owl Let You Know :)