Hoot Hoot - A Close Encounter

In February I drove to the Bear River Bird Migratory Refuge near Brigham City - an hour north of Salt Lake City in search of Bald Eagles. Instead I had an encounter with four separate Barn Owl individuals on the road leading to the BMR area.  Reread that - four separate individual Barn Owls in the stretch of 20 minutes, in the daytime. In the span of a couple of weeks I had gone from never seeing a Barn Owl in the wild to seeing four within moments of each other, incredible.

My bird books say they hunt at night but these ladies didn't get the memo. I say lady because that same book says that the ladies are lighter in color than their male counterparts. All four appear to share the same plumage so I will refer to them as ladies.

This barn Owl approached me as I drove down a deserted road leading to the BMR.  She turned and paralleled my movement as she searched the roadside ditch for voles/mice. To get the following picture I had to balance my big lens on the driver's side window, find her in the view finder and focus on her as we drove/flew down the road at 30 mph. We flew together for a good few minutes before she turned off to hunt down another ditch.  She got so close that I could not fit all of her in the frame and ended up "cutting off her wingtips" but getting a nice close up of her face and body.

Days later, on Valentine's Day, I had my last encounter with my original Barn Owl friend in the Farmington Bay WMR.  This owl's heart-shaped face seemed wholly appropriate on Valentine's Day. On that day we had a mix of snow and rain that you can see beading up on her head.   

She shook off the water in a manner similar to the Kestrel who "shivered" in a previous post.

 

My last photo is this beautiful Barn Owl taking flight from her perch on a rock. The colors/patterns on the wing are spectacular and it clearly shows that her feet - sharp daggers that are all business. 

 

When I get back from vacation I will post some Bald Eagle photos and other interesting bird and animals I've seen recently.