Great Horned Owl

This photo of a Great Horned Owl was taken last year at Mud Lake in Ottawa. Well, good thing I took many photos of them last year because there is no Great Horned owl nest this year. Photographing the owls and their off-spring had been a sort of rite of Spring for many of the local nature photographers.

None of the Mud Lake regulars have seen a nest or even a second owl this year. This would correlate with my findings as well. There is one Great Horned owl at Mud Lake and it has been there all winter and is still there as of this week. I hear it calling but never a return call from a second owl.

Yet, rumours (or speculation anyway) persist that there is a Great Horned Owl nest this year. The only person I recall who told me he saw a nesting pair of Great Horned owls at Mud Lake this Spring was a birder named Dave (from what I understand, a good friend of a top birder, Bruce, in Ottawa). I did a double-take when he said he saw owls and they're sitting on a nest. I had to ask if he said "owls" or owl. He said owls as in plural. The rumour lives and we spend more time looking for a nest.....and a second owl.

Well, this week I ran into a couple of Mud Lake regulars (who would know if a pair were nesting as they have followed the Great Horned owls from previous years....they are happily retired and are there almost every day as they live nearby) who told me there is no nest this year.

They had spoken to a local naturalist who knows Mud Lake like the back of his hand. He lives nearby and has followed the owls (and other birds and wildlife and knows the variety of plants that flourish in the environment) at Mud Lake for years. He had a say into how the new stone paths were designed through the wooded area (the relatively new main walking trail) and selected some of the material for the new wood bridge many Mud Lake visitors now enjoy the use of. Well, according to the couple of Mud Lake regulars, the naturalist told them there is no nest this year and he's only seen the one owl as well. The only Great Horned owl at Mud Lake is the male that has been there all winter and is still there.

Well, "hoo" to believe? BTW, this image is almost full-frame.

Update: I think the consensus now is that there is no nest.

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Well, you heard it, so who-who you gonna believe?

Nice shot though.

canonloader wrote in post #3143226
Well, you heard it, so who-who you gonna believe?

Nice shot though.

That's a hoot Thanks canonloader. Well, so far the evidence...or overwhelming lack of it.....points to no nest. I have no idea why that Dave guy said what he said.

Nice capture Canon.

Great capture! I have yet to see one of these

Stephen Stephen wrote in post #3143284
Nice capture Canon.

Thanks Stephen. Because there is no nest this year the one Great Horned owl is always sitting high up so photography is not great. I still need to go thru my files of this owl because so many images are just sitting on the HDD unprocessed.

Leorooster wrote in post #3143344
Great capture! I have yet to see one of these

Thanks Leorooster. We are fortunate that a pair has nested here for a few years (until this year) now in a local wooded area that is easily accessible. The best bet is to find out if there is a bird reporting website for your area and then search the reports to see if any owls are mentioned. Or thru word of mouth by talking to birders or other nature photographers. That's how I found out about a nesting pair of Coopers Hawks and Great Horned owls in the Montreal area.

Well, one thing hasn't changed this year......the crows were busy harrassing the Great Horned Owl late today. Soon as I heard the racket I knew what bird had gotten the crows up in arms.

That's a nice picture!

Very good shot of the owl. I posted a shot of a Great Horned Owl I took at Mud Lake last Friday. It must be the male you speak of. It was being harrassed by crows and sits high in the tree.

Regards
Joe

asolie wrote in post #3169040
That's a nice picture!

Thanks Alyssa.

Canonada wrote in post #3169143
Very good shot of the owl. I posted a shot of a Great Horned Owl I took at Mud Lake last Friday. It must be the male you speak of. It was being harrassed by crows and sits high in the tree.

Regards
Joe

Thanks Joe. I will search for that post to have a look. Thank goodness for those crows eh? Our owl-finder friends. Too bad, not having a nesting pair this year means the one owl sits very high up mostly. Some of us have been spoiled with great photo ops of the owls over the past couple of years. Last summer one of the young owls had somehow found itself on the ground and was walking vertically up the tree trunk as one of the adult owls looked on from a high perch (I wasn't there but someone told me they watched it do that and someone else had taken a photo of it).

One of the best gho shots I've seen. Very nice!

I think I would blur the BG some, but this is an awesome capture. --Rick

Great-Horned Owls (GHO) will often use a nesting site for several years, and then move onto a new nesting site. If the nest is at a good location (sufficient prey and lack of preditors of their owlets) they may use it for 5-8 years at most.

After nesting, both the male and female do not stay together. But the family does stay loosely connected thru the summer months. Come December-February of the following year, the male and female will come back together to mate again.

canondsluser wrote:

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This is called "Branching". When the GHO owlets get to get to be 45-55 days old, they start moving on onto the branches. Sooner or later all of them fall to the ground. They will run around on the ground until they learn how to climb up the tree. Then they will climb vertically up the tree and sit on a branch until they are 60-75 days old. At this point they are mature enough to start flying. Branchers are great photo opportunities that most photographers miss. But, beware...parents of Branchers can be very aggressive. Especially GHO! If you get too close the parents will fly by and drag their talons across the tops of your head. If the parents are doing this, then you are too close. Use your telephoto lens to avoid disturbing them and injuring yourself.

From what I understand from the post and some of the replies, is that there is a Male GHO present, and maybe at one time there was a male and female present on a nest site. It is possible that the female was killed (GHO live about 13 years in the wild on the average). But, it is usually the male who is killed during nesting season. If the male is killed, the female will then hunt and take care of the owlets. It is also possible that the pair moved to another location, and one of their owlets (from last year) is now occupying the territory. Or, it could be a completely different owl.