by Matthew Cobb
This tw**t by Sarah Rydgren, who takes a mean photo herself: http://www.sarahrydgrenphotography.com/
Happy Birthday, Coyne!
My brother caught an owl landing on a deer on his trail camera…are you kidding me? pic.twitter.com/Y977MDwknc
— Sarah Anne (@SarahRydgren) December 27, 2014
That is amazing. Over the years I find more and more of an appreciation for the capabilities of owls.
Amazing. What’s he thinkin’? Use the deer as a hunting perch?
Happy Coynezaa, one and all! As the owl might say, “go big or go home!”
That owl surely is ambitious.
Happy Birthday Professor Ceiling Cat. You are the featured person on Freedom From Religion’s Freethought of the day.
“them meeses are getting big.”
cue Sylvester the Cat and the baby kangaroo.
Look at the owl’s crazy eyes! I wonder if he/she thought the deer’s ears were small rodents.
Many Happy Returns of the Day!
Sub
Happy fødselsdag, Jerry! 🙂
The owl is like a lady with wings, wearing scarf…:)
Could it be that the owl is upset at the deer’s presence for some reason and is trying to drive it out of the area? If so, what could the reason(s) be? Maybe the deer is scaring the rodents into their burrows and making it tough for the owl to hunt?
I think the owl’s going for a bird that’s alongside the deer and it’s a trick of perspective. Neat, though.
And happy birthday, Jerry!
And now I’m disagreeing with myself.
Hate it when that happens.
Happy Birthday, Professor Ceiling Cat. I know you’re turning 65, but please don’t retire this website–never, ever!
Happy birthday, Jerry. And many more owls in the future.
Happy birthday Jerry!
That’s no mouse!
b&
Maybe it’s a deer mouse? Economy-size version?
Maybe…but it’s no moose, either….
b&
Well deer are a bit mousy looking. Reminds me of a story I heard in Alaska about a bald eagle that went down to grab something out of the ocean, and the bird just disappeared. They thought the bird might have accidentally grabbed an Orca. Or perhaps it was an Alaskan urban legend…
Congratulations on another successful trip around the sun Jerry!
That’s a fantastic capture, right there!
Apparently we’re having an invasion of snowy owls in Ontario:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/snowy-owl-epidemic-sweeps-across-ontario-1.2885513
Here’s an interesting excerpt from the news article:
“The Ontario invasion of snowy owls in 2013 was called an irruption. This year, the second year of the phenomenon, is called an echo.
An irruption is a dramatic, irregular migration of large numbers of birds to areas where they aren’t typically found. An echo year occurs when the same phenomenon occurs the following year. ”
Cool.
There was an owl whooing down the back of my place. I couldn’t see the owl, but every who caused my dog to give an angry look & bark. She doesn’t like anything else in her yard, air space or near her yard. This now includes small birds in the weigela if there are too many. I’m not sure what “too many” is, but at some point, my dog decides there are too many small birds in the weigela & barks until they leave.
Did Horton hear it?
Probably, this is Ontario; there are a lot of Tim Horton’s around.
Tim Hortons in Whoville…
I love your descriptions of stuff, Diana! So much fun. 🙂
Does your dog go ballistic at hot-air balloons and fireworks? Mine did. Oh, they didn’t like herons either. One of the cats (very feisty one) used to go after herons who used to go after our goldfish in the backyard pond.
My dog hasn’t seen hot air ballons but I’m sure she’d hate one if she saw it over her yard. She gets very angry, narrowed eyes when she hears firecrackers, then barks angrily at them, moving her body to face several directions as if to make sure she yells at the sound wherever it might be. 🙂
Recently, I’ve found she enjoys those big pillows of air that you get as packaging in parcels. I popped one in her face, causing the air to flow over her, and she thought this was the best as she got to enjoy two sensations: the loud sound & the air. My dog is high stim so things that stimulate are very, very exciting. Now, she goes nuts when she sees those things & tries to grab them out of my hand to bite them but she never gets the “boom” if she does it.
Yes, my dog also barks at cranes, crows, hawks & sometimes geese. She also will bark at airplanes if they are low enough. Funny because, I’ve had dogs in the past that never bothered to look up so missed all the things above them.
Our dogs used to look up. Maybe it’s because we taught them to do that as puppies… I don’t remember, but it’s the sort of thing I’d do. I remember your dog picking raspberries just like ours did. So cute.
I used to love seeing them pounce on icy puddles, to break the ice so as to have a drink. The rottie used to love to challenge the vacuum cleaner. 🙂 And bite the garden hose and water jets … leaving punctures in the hose.
There were New Years fireworks last night, and of course some significant proportion of all the dogs in the city went nuts and jumped over fences. Driving back from the airport this morning (from sending two kids to stay with Grandma for a month) we saw a still red-brown lump at the side of the highway, and with a rapid neck-twist I noted the erect ears (?kelpie/cattle dog) and chain collar. One of how many?
That’s sad. I don’t like seeing an animal that was someone’s pet, dead at the side of the road.
A few months back a kitty ran in front of my car on a country road, in the dark. I managed to avoid him/her. I figure the cat just got out of a nearby house as it looked like a bengal.
I would not have wanted to be that deer a fraction of a second later!
Looks like an attack posture. It’s a barred owl, which starts courtship in the winter near the nest site, where it or its mate will lay eggs in February or March. They can be very aggressive about driving away intruders.
Oh, and happy birthday JC!