The other day as we got back to the cabin after a walk with the dogs, Lynne started pointing toward the front of the cabin and placing her hands next to her head with her index fingers pointed upwards. I got the dogs into the cabin quickly because I thought she was signaling the presence of a moose, elk or deer with antlers. However, she was pointing to a Great Horned Owl that was sitting on top of a dead tree right in front of the cabin. We quickly grabbed cameras.
This is a shot of the owl looking away, so we see the back of his head.
It was getting dark, so mostly what we got were silhouettes of the owl. But, I tweeked a few photos so you can see a little of his mottled coloring.
Profile shot.
Looking toward me, you can kind of see his eyes and the white ring around his neck.
And here is a video where you can hear the two types of calls we often hear. The first is an "alert" call, and we've also seen that it can be a mating call. The final call is what we typically expect; the common "who who" call.
Here is a video, taken by one of our game cameras, of mother moose and her two young ones. One is a boy, the other a girl. They are visiting our salt lick.
The Meadow at sunset, Bull Mountain in the background.
Gee, that's a hard question! Let me see ...
Yesterday morning on our way into town (our activities yesterday require another whole blog post) we saw in this order, a herd of antelope that have been hanging out in the area around Bucky Beavers', cows, a coyote, a bald eagle, about four unidentified hawks, more cows. When we arrived home (the first time —see I told you yesterday was crazy) as I drove down the driveway I spooked our Great-Horned owl who was apparently sitting on our barn and all I saw was a huge wingspan sweeping away from me.
On our walk to the bottom with the dogs last night after dinner I looked up to see four big bucks (deer) with large racks running across the ridgeline on the top of the hill. Gorgeous!
Just as it was beginning to get dark I looked out to see our resident mamma moose and baby at the mineral lick right outside our diningroom window.
And that was just yesterday! We are also fond of sitting out on the front porch and listening to the pair of owls perform a duet of squawks and calls after dinner.
Geez, right now I am sitting here at the table typing this post and who shows up but mamma moose and baby, right now! And here they are.
Lately we've been getting some beautiful birds that appear to be just passing through. They are not our regulars and only stay about a day or so after checking out the feeder. Our bird feeding station is right outside the window where I always sit in the mornings to check email and drink my coffee, so it's obvious when different birds show up.
This beautiful Lazuli Bunting showed up the other morning and stayed the better part of the day.
He checked out the seeds along with the pine siskins, juvenile red-winged blackbird and juvenile evening grosbeak. He was not a very big bird in size, but big on color!
Another day visitor was this Bullock's Oriole. I never could get a clear photo of him. He did land on the hummingbird feeder looking for something sweet but he was not interested in the seed at all.
Another bird that has been around a lot lately is the Clark's Nutcracker aka Camp Robber. We haven't seen them all summer but now they seem to be everywhere. They like the sappy green pinecones. They are large birds, the size of a magpie and very beautiful in flight. You know when they're around because they are noisy. Hey, after all they are a jay!
I'm sure we'll be seeing more visitors as they migrate to their winter homes.
