Yes! It’s family movie time for the Great Gray Owl family … at least junior the owlet and poppa. Early this week I looked at the advanced weather forecast and noted that there would  be two days during the middle of this week when hunting would be extremely difficult for owls that hunt primarily by hearing sounds.  For a change the forecast was in fact correct. Night #1 was extremely windy with gusts as high as 40 mph, and the following night saw successive waves of thunderstorms. The end result meant the owlets / great gray juveniles would be very hungry. Parent owls would need to hunt well past sunrise to feed their young after several days of limited food.

This is in fact what did occur. Winds were still very windy at 6:30 am two morning ago when I found Poppa Great Gray Owl. He would not begin to hunt for over an hour. See the first video where he is hanging on to some dead branches for dear life.

Poppa Owl at 6:30 am (not hunting yet)(video link for email subscribers)

Poppa then flew down into a relatively protected area amongst some spruce trees. He still did not hunt, but at least he was out of the main wind and could preen his feathers. (video link for email subscribers)

The light at this point was horrible. On my drive to my birding location I actually experienced pouring rain. Light was very bad, but I was happy the rain had at least stopped and I could actually photograph Poppa Owl, but flight shots were impossible. At this point our great hunter crossed a remote dirt road and disappeared. I had now been joined by a friend and we both believed Poppa Owl was likely hunting in the bog habitat. This meant “saddling up” in heavy clothes and bushwhacking into the bog. Surprisingly (and thankfully) we discovered the following:

• Unlike this spring, the dry conditions this summer made for no bugs!
• The bog was not wet in the slightest. We never got our boots wet.
• After 80 yards of thick undergrowth, the forest floor opened up to reveal no undergrowth … just moss and easy walking.
• 400 yards in from the road … the sun came out and we found junior!

Junior …. the Great Gray Owlet (video link for email subscribers)

And some images of the juvenile Great Gray Owlet … I took over 1,000 photographs during the 3 hours I spent with the owl family. Please understand this is an EXTREMELY rare sighting. I have only seem Great Gray Owlets one other time in my life. Most people have never seen this kind of juvenile owl … did I also mention there were no bugs back in the bog??!! Life was good.

I may be young, but I’m already lethal! Talons!

Some general poses for the camera guy (*i.e. me … Rich)

Stretch! Morning  Aerobics!

More Great Gray Owlet Talon Photos

Okay … stopping for now … but there will be a part 2 in this series of posts … coming soon to a blog near you! ………. Junior eats a Mole or Poppa Brings Breakfast!