Snowy Owl

[Len Backus]

Yesterday at Horicon Marsh, Wisconsin.

I watched this bird go out to hunt 5 times and he was successful 4 of those times. In this second picture you can see the vole in his left talon just as he returned.

In this final image he is chowing down. They turn the vole head-first and gulp it down without tearing at it as a hawk would.

 

[Dave King]

They are a ghostly looking beast, awesome.

 

[bailey1474]

[ QUOTE ]
They turn the vole head-first and gulp it down without tearing at it as a hawk would.

[/ QUOTE ]

Then they cough up a nice little "owl pellet" containing the hair, bones and anything else that was unpallatable. I've had the pleasure of digging through some of these and trying to identify the rodent they had eaten by the skull. Didn't really care for that class too much.

Beautiful pics as usual!!

 

[Wild_Bill]

Hi what awsome pics and a magnificent preditor in its natural elements thanks for sharing them with us.

Cheers Bill
Australia

 

[Buffalobob]

I guess the owl is there because there are enough voles to make the energy expenditure positive. Four outta five is really good. I tried one late cold December day to match a small hawk who was catching songbirds while I was shooting doves. It was running about 50 percent success on songbirds over a two hour period and I was only running about 30 percent on doves.

 

[Mountainsheep]

Len,

As usual, you have provided us with superb images of another of the great raptors. Again, your camera work is fantastic and I can only imagine that stalking those sharp-eyed subjects is a most challenging hunt.

Thanks for sharing,
Dave

 

[Mountainsheep]

[ QUOTE ]
they cough up a nice little "owl pellet" containing the hair, bones and anything else that was unpallatable

[/ QUOTE ]

BB,
Is this another "potted meat" recipe? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[6BRBB]

Amazing photo's Len, especially the middle one. What camera do you use?

Glen

 

[speedbump]

Beautiful Len. As usual!

 

[Len Backus]

Thanks, all.

6, I use a Nikon D2X with both 600/4 and 200-400 VR lenses.

 

[bailey1474]

Probably much tastier and more sanitary than potted meat!!!!

 

[Michael Eichele]

Nice pix.

Up here, there are places that snow owls can be harvested!

 

[älg]

Michael, do you have gyrfalcons up there I guess?

 

[royinidaho]

Re: Snowy Owl-Hey Len

What if?

A fella, as a study, drew you Owl landing w/vole?

Then learned to paint it?

Then painted it onto the butt stock of a rifle?

What would the deal be?

Also you may wish to figure out how to disable the 'right click' to keep cheep skates like me from using your pics as screen backgrounds. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif