Owl in my cedar tree

[sixdogs]

Here's a photo of an owl in my back yard in a cedar (Northern White Cedar or Arborvitae) tree. He's about five ft off the ground and there are a bunch of mouse skeletons under the tree. The eye is pretty imtimidating. The photo was actually taken last year and it never occured to me to post it here--duh.
On the skeletons, I was told they eat their prey whole and eliminate what doesn't digest. Photos in next post below.
I left this photo full size so you can get a clearer image. It's a big file.

 

[sixdogs]

Here's the mouse remains. Just the skull and some mouse fur nap. Note the yellow mouse teeth. Ugh.
Not sure if he ever returned but a did see a big pile of bird feather yesterday so I hope maybe he can grab a few more rodents for me.

 

[EddieWalker]

Amazing Picture!!!! Very Nice.

It's just about impossible to see an owl out in the wild, and that's just a great shot!!!

Eddie

 

[GolfAddict]

Very cool!!

 

[bullbreaker]

Thanks for taking time out to post that,neat pic(owl) !

Boone

 

[jinman]

Amazing Picture!!!! Very Nice.

It's just about impossible to see an owl out in the wild, and that's just a great shot!!!

Eddie

Eddie, I'm not sure if it's just your location, but we see owls quite often. They tend to fly very low through the woods just before sunset. Perhaps you just to have to have an eye for spotting them.

 

[beppington]

Cool! I like owls. Here's one in my parents' tree. He swoops down from the tree into a grass area & grabs something who knows what, then back into a tree on the other side of the grass area; repeat until full I guess.

 

[s219]

Owls are really amazing. I have studied the aerodynamics and acoustics of owls for aircraft research, and they have some real interesting evolutionary features in their wings and body.

First are the noise aspects. Because of downy under feathers and clever wing edge feathers, owls are silent to their prey. All the noise emitted by the owl in flight is low frequency, muffled flaps. This is all lower in frequency than the hearing range of small prey (mainly rodents). So the prey never hears the owl coming. On top of that, the owl's hearing range is the same as the rodents, so the owl does not hear his own noise and can focus completely on listening to the prey.

Second are the aerodynamics. Owls have some very clever feather shapes and flying habits that allow them to fly at very steep angles of attack, so they can basically come barreling in at about 45 degrees angle of approach (that's generally 10-20 times steeper than a typical airplane can land at without gimmicks like thrust vectoring).

Between the steep flight angle and the silent operation, owls are extremely stealthy -- they are nature's original stealth aircraft. The first sign prey will have that an owl is present is physical contact, when the owl's talons grab it. So that's how something so big and seemingly conspicuous can nail targets like mice so easily. It's really amazing.

 

[bullbreaker]

Bepp awesome pics ! :thumbsup:

Boone

 

[sixdogs]

Owls are really amazing. ..y. It's really amazing.....

When we lived in Maine we would often see the tell-tale wing-print marks in the snow where an owl grabbed a partridge. Once we had one grab something maybe 20 ft in front of us while we were snowmobiling. Scared the living #@*& out of us. Plus, we had a Great Horned Owl in our barn a couple times and once had a Snowy Owl in a tree out back. Their wing span is huge and heir talons way longer than you would think.