That's great! We have/had a few owls in the vicinity, but nothing I've had any chance of photgraphing. Occasional hawks, but I'm still jealous...

Hi Catherine, Around here (southeastern Ontario, Canada) some of the great horned owls have half grown chicks already...they nest early. So do the barred owls and long eared owls. So it's very likely a juvenile bird (actually, more than likely...the big owls tend to eat the little owls otherwise...years ago when we were banding saw-whet owls, we saw great horned owls preying on both them and the slightly larger long ears....which in turn ate the saw whets occasionally) I know what you mean about one of those nights...I had one of those afternoons...a short drive along the river this afternoon showed me great blue herons fishing, pileated woodpeckers displaying, ospreys fishing and tending their nests, a nice ruffed grouse strutting. At home the upland sandpipers were calling on the breeze and establishing their territories...and the harriers were doing courtship flights and getting buzzed by the nesting kestrels. I had about 30 goldfinches hanging around the feeders all day, just coming into full yellow plumage, and the tree swallows have occupied every single nest box I have out for them (24 this year) I have a nice selection of waterfowl nesting this year, as well (Canada goose, mallard, blue and green winged teal, wood duck, hooded merganser, and for the first time that I'm sure of, a pair of ring necked ducks.) Spring is good.

Awww, it's an owlet in the pot! Thanks for the link, Mark. Rachel, We were watching a red tailed hawk nest one year and the next spring I caught a glimpse of movement in the same nest. We took our binocs and hiked out to see the 'hawks' again. The nest was occupied by a GHO family. The mom about scared me to death when I finally focused in and saw her aggravated stare! Our observation is that they will use existing nests to raise their brood. It was a huge stick nest too. Pam

You'd think the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would recognize the difference between a Great-horned Owl and Eurasian Eagle Owl. Good catch. I left them a message on the Flickr link that this photo came from. Wonder if I'll get a response to that. Actually, went back in there and found several mis-ID'd raptors. Weird. I expected better. This post was edited by TMFF on Wed, Mar 20, 13 at 23:46