As I Type

Very cool! Great share, makes me want to hike.

Lucky you - Gorgeous !
My house is surrounded by forest - & I am just aching to catch a glimpse of an Owl in a tree.

Certainly do hear them at night.
Lol. Try to sleep with that.

Roger,

Beautiful shot.

Dave

It’s pretty common to see owls on our walls and fences, patiently waiting for their prey to make a noise in the brush.

Years ago, I was having coffee with a friend and we watched an owl on her far wall as he stared at her golden retriever. Sure enough that brave owl swooped in and we got the dog inside just in time. The owl slammed into the patio door.
I don’t stay outside when they perch any longer. They are predators, after all.

It's 12:47 PM.


As I was waiting for better lighting, he just flew off.

He must have had enough of me, interrupting his sleep

Now back to David

Owls are beautiful animals, I wish I lived in a more "wild" place.

I love that photo. The owl looks like he is posing for you! I haven't seen any owls yet, but I sure can hear them. Not letting my cats out, at all, and they are mad at me. Heard too many stories about owls swooping down and snatching up small pets for dinner.

That's not the owl from that eyeglasses commercial on tv, is it. 😎
.

BillTomsa

https://billtomsa.blogspot.com/

Patricia, I saw a video of a cat hunting down a bird in a yard, he had injured it so it wasn't getting too far, but just out of reach. Finally it got it in his paws and was fighting it when a bird of prey swooped in and took it from him. The video was low res so I couldn't say for sure it was an owl but that seems most likely. The look on the cat was pretty funny, he couldn't believe what just happened. lol

My Dad owns an old wrecking yard and they had cats out there, not that they brought them there, they just kind of showed up and so they'd leave food out for them now and then so they'd stick around and keep the mouse population in check. My Dad was out working on a truck one day when he noticed one of the cats was acting very paranoid, keeping to the shadows and looking up at the sky all around, he also noticed the cat appeared to be injured. Suddenly the cat made a break to get across an open space, it hadn't gone ten feet when suddenly a hawk swooped in and snatched him up! There was much screeching and struggling in the air until finally the hawk let go, the cat actually survived the drop, possibly 50 ft or more and made it to safety.

Back in 2003, my daughter and I used to do a lot of photography. One day we were driving to a state park when I passed this corn field and saw what looked like an owl in the middle of the field. It was in early June so the corn was only a few inches tall. So, I turned around and my daughter looked through her camera to see what it was and it was a Great Horned Owl! Well, I was wondering what an owl was doing out in the middle of the field in the middle of the day so we decided to walk out there and see what was going on. The owl did not try to get away from us and from the way it was holding it's one wing, it looked like it was broke. So, we called the county police and they were going to send someone out to rescue it, but something came up so they gave me permission to capture the owl and gave me a number to a raptor rescue here in Indiana called Soarin' Hawks. Luckily I had a big empty box in my truck and it ended up being fairly easy to get the owl in there as it just kind of flopped over playing dead. We got through to someone from Soarin' Hawks and they had us meet them at a local store called Wild Birds Unlimited. They examined the owl when they got there and before they left, the lady asked me if I wanted to hold it. That is probably one of the neatest things I ever got to do. They were able to rehabilitate the owl and it was returned to the wild. I have a photo of me holding it, but I don't know how to share a picture like that here in the discussion.

Great stories! I'm glad the cat survived the drop, David. You did good, Judy.

I guess I never realized that owls are actually predators, having lived most of my life in the city.

Lucky bastid!

In my life I have seen ONE wild owl. Last year driving south on I84 through Eastern CT.

Earlier this spring I was swooped in my car and I could not see enough of it to pick it out of a lineup of alleycats. But the way the bird flew was not like any other, and alike to nature film knowledge of owls.

The bird population is coming back.

I dont think people remember that we nearly lost the birds in the east. Silent Spring.

Now we have bald eagles in the Hudson Valley. Lots of them. 15 years ago you had to be a dedicated birder if you were going to see a bald eagle here.

Herons and cranes were a rare treat from the 60s through the 90s. Now we have egrets!

God Bless Rachel Carson! She saved the birds! For all of us

They'll kill us all with a chemical if we don't stop them, the nearly extincted us with leaded gasoline.

Yep, a very good friend, an engineer retired told me the oil companies since the 1920s have know either lead or alcohol would add power to gasoline. The oil companies did not want the farmers to get a leg up and went with lead instead.

Dave

DB, neither lead nor alcohol add power to gasoline. Lead was used as an anti-knock additive (gasoline was of a much poorer quality back then) and it also lubricated valves at the seat. That's why after lead was removed from gasoline new cars came with hardened valve seats. Also, lead was not removed to keep lead out of the air, it was removed because it coated the catalyst in catalytic convertors rendering them ineffective. Alcohol has a cooling effect when added to gasoline but it takes a lot of it, and alcohol actually has less energy per gallon than gasoline, that's why cars that run on E80 have higher fuel consumption. Alcohol does raise octane but only a small amount and if a car isn't designed to use high octane that does nothing for it anyway.

I once lived near a nature preserve, and sometimes I'd hear owl fights at night - you know, trying to out-hoot each other. Cool.

I had a friend who had an owl cuckoo clock. Instead of a cuckoo emerging, it had an owl that would hoot out the time.

I love owls.

HE'S BACK

With some very nervous wrens below



He moved a bit

Got this severely cropped image, I kinda like

I wish I were ambidextrous; typing on two computers at once would be cool and I would get twice as much done.

Roger it is so cool he came back!

I have a big old tree outside my window and every fall there is some sort of, what I always thought to be owls migrating in that tree. I have never seen them but at dark start calling to each other and drive the dogs crazy. They don't "hoot" but have a very odd and kind of eerie call. Maybe not an owl at all.

I wish I could get a good shot of an owl. Nice, Roger!

I have a cardinal story. My parents had a large tree in the front yard and there was a cardinal nest in there and one of the babies fell out and hopped under one of the bushes in front of the house to hide. The mother came down a couple of times a day and fed the baby. After two days of this or so, I was sun bathing in the backyard and there were three cardinals sitting on a phone wire in the back of the property screeching and making all sorts of racket. Then one of them flew to the phone wire coming into the house, sat just above my head screeching at me. Just then my parents drove into the driveway and my dad said "Did the cat get the baby bird?". We went out front and looked under the bushes and couldn't find the baby. Apparently there was a cat stalking the poor thing in the front while these adult birds were trying to ask for my help. They knew we had left the baby alone. Poor baby bird....That experience always amazed me. Birds are not dumb.

Mary,

You said a mouthful!

Birds are remarkably smart!

So many animals (and plants) that we think of as barely sentient are much more aware of us than we suspect.

I used to have a brother in law who had a pet fly. It was a house fly that he would feed, with his fingers. We used to have Gourami fish that would watch TV with us. Beta fish are very aware of who has the food and will rub, affectionately, against your fingers in the water.

This documentary will change everything you think about crows.



It is worth every second of the 55 minutes (I've watched it at least 4 times)

Oh, the poor wrens! Do they stand a chance?

The owl is so darned cute for being such a predator! His looks are deceiving, lol.

I like his "handle bar mustache"!

Patricia,

So far So good

When it's not dinner time for the owl. all the other birds seem to go ahead and do what they normally do


Edit:

Diana,

Do you think there may be a similarity?...The owl and me?

I think so, Roger lots of similarity between the owl and you.

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/11/why-lead-used-to-be-added-to-gasoline/

DK,

The full report is an interesting history. In simpler terms by getting rid of knocking cheaper grades of gasoline could be produced that had the same octane. The whole thing about getting rid of the knock was the compression point for ignition of the gasoline was below optimal running of the engine. Hence the knock. Lead ups how much the gasoline can be compressed so the gas is compressed fully before ignition. Proper power is created.

Beyond that in 1925 it was known by researchers that a mix of 10% alcohol was optimal. That is not stated in this report. The report is written in chronological order with 1925 as the year researchers became totally aware that alcohol could be the substitute for lead.

Dave