Snowy Owl in Colo

-
A Snowy Owl was found last week in eastern El Paso County while I was still driving back to Colorado. Though not as rare to Colo as the Northern Wheatear was to Texas, Snowy Owls are still quite rare and enjoy considerable attention by Colorado birders. It was nice to see one of these beauties again.
This series of pics of this Snowy Owl is a progression of views from most distant to closer. In the top pic, the owl had flown from the top of a home in this rural subdivision where it has been seen for well over a week and can be seen on a distant rooftop where it perched on the HD antenna as shown by the arrow I sketched. In the middle pic the owl is perched on the highest point it can get to--on the HD antenna. Note the whitewash beneath this antenna which is evidently a location this owl has used on a number of occasions. I cropped the middle pic to obtain the closer view in the bottom pic of the owl on the antenna.
I took the middle pic from the far side of the street that was adjacent to house on which it was perched which was a distance of about 200 feet. I took these pics with my Canon xti digital slr with a 400 mm lens(f5.6)-since my camera is not 'full frame', this provides a multiplier of 1.6 resulting in an equivalent 640 mm photo length. SeEtta

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Spotted Sandpiper Chicks, 3 more days older

-
Image
Two days when I went to check on the Spotted Sandpiper family at Florence River Park I thought they had likely perished--there were two men engaged in gold panning right where the parent sandpiper had been and they had dug some of the sand from the bank where I last saw the sandpiper chicks. Arggh, I was afraid that all this activity, plus a large off leash dog with these people, would have scared the parent away and even if the chicks were successful in hiding in the vegetation they would not survive without a parent at their young age. What a surprise when I returned that evening for one last check to be accosted by the parent sandpiper calling loudly and challenging me by walking right towards me (and my dog). It took awhile for the parent to settle down and for one of the chicks to walk in some grass where I could spot it--the parent had moved the chicks about 150 from the river into an area with a lot of vegetation. I returned day before yesterday and refound the parent and
Read more

Recently fledged Common Raven

-
Image
At the end of March this year I spotted a Common Raven going into a crevice above a rock face of a local cliff area called Castle Rock (as part of it looks sort of like a castle). I started watching this area and observed a pair of Common Ravens spending time around this location. On March 27 I spotted one of the ravens inside the crevice which now had what looked like nesting material in it--the photograph of that is the second pic here. I continued off and on to check this apparent crevice nest. At the end of May I saw what appeared to be a nestling inside the crevice. I continued birding in the riparian forest across the Arkansas River from this cliff area. When I was about a quarter mile away I heard a lot of raven racket and walked to a spot where I could see the cliff area through my binoculars. I could see a lot of raven action with the parent birds calling loudly so I expected that the nestling may have fledged or they were trying to get it to fledge. I went back t
Read more

Band-tailed Pigeons, the mountain pigeons

-
Image
I spotted a small flock of about 9 or 10 of these Band-tailed Pigeons in a tiny unincorporated town called Greenwood which is south of Canon City about 20 miles (via winged flight). The homes in Greenwood are right up against the San Isabel National Forest and forests are the habitat for these mountain pigeons. The white collar on the nape of this species can be seen in the pic above.  The broad pale gray terminal band on a darker upper tail (and below the light undertail coverts) is best seen in pic below.  SeEtta
Read more