Yes, more burrowing owls! This photo is from reader John Chardine, reproduced with permission, and with his notes:
I recently spent a couple of weeks in Florida photographing birds. I photographed this mating pair within a 100 meters or so of the Cape Coral Public Library. They seem to thrive in suburban areas in Florida. Copulations in this species are not photographed too often. We were very lucky.
She looks bored.
That’s what I was going to say too. Lady owl looks like she just tolerating the whole thing because she’d rather be doing something else.
Me three! My immediate anthropomorphic reaction was: Isn’t he done yet?
She’s probably drumming her claws…
She might be bored, but he looks positively gleeful.
She looks to me as though she is trying to remain dignified throughout one of nature’s least dignified acts. Like an Edwardian lady, she is pretending it isn’t happening.
Thinking of England…
Omg great minds! I wrote the same.
Ha ha, she is thinking of England.
Florida, you say? Better hope Jeb Bush doesn’t get wind of this and decide to crack down on this sort of public lewdness as part of his attempts to pander to the Tea Partiers….
And they’re owls, right? With spots? Spotted Owls, you might even say? He’d probably make it a point to go out with one of the Cheney clan and some shotguns….
b&
what are wols?
Wols are owls. It’s a reference to the Christopher Robin books by A.A. Milne where the very young Christopher gets the word “owl” slightly wrong.
Ah, thanks. I read them so long ago, lost to the mists…
We’ve featured the Cape Coral, Florida burrowing owls here at WEIT in the past, here and here.
My husband has been watching (from the car window) three pairs of burrowing owls that are nesting in the industrial area around his office. They’re surprisingly tolerant of vehicles, noise, and parking lot lights (which probably attract bugs for them at night) but they don’t like pedestrians wandering around because their burrows are only a couple of feet from the sidewalk!
LOL OWLS (Just say it a couple of times)