April 24th, 2006
who goes there?
A few days ago, Don said he saw 2 Long-eared Owls (Asio otus) perched in one of the conifers here at our farm. Since then, he’s been keeping an eye out for them and found a lone owl on a couple of subsequent occasions – always perched in the same conifer. Today, he again found the owl in its tree and watched as it moved across into a nearby aspen. He then came to get me from the house so that I could see and photograph it. We found it right where it was last seen. Unfortunately, there were quite a few branches screening our view, but it was still nice to get a few photos. There have been Long-eared Owls around the farm in past years, but we’d never seen anything to confirm nesting activity. However, it would seem likely that we have a pair nesting somewhere in the woods near this owl’s favourite hang-out spot.
The Long-eared Owl is quite a small, thin bird — the body probably no bigger than a crow. It has very orange-brown facial disks with strong vertical black markings that cross the eye area. Its back seemed sort of like a tweed jacket with a grey and brindle mix. The ear tufts are long and set fairly close together. It flew a couple of times while we were watching. It was very silent and did not fly far, just moving a couple of trees over. It was scolded by a Bluejay, but seemed to ignore it. We’ll try to keep watch for more activity over the next few weeks.
Here’s an information page on Long-eared Owls from The Owl Pages website.
Tags: Long-eared Owl, Asio otus