It's Owlready Friday!

When an owl flies off in front of you from one tree to another, it's a pretty amazing thing. Owls are one of our most favorite birds to see at the refuge and this one on the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge auto tour kindly chose a tree that allowed us to get some great shots. Any other time we've seen a Great Horned Owl (you can view those posts here), they've always been tucked into the dense leaves and branches and virtually impossible to see.

This owl was also doing a lot of "hoo"-ing and we watched as its tail shot up vertically every time it had something to say. (I'll post some video as soon as I upload my new video editor.)

Here's an idea of exactly how far away this owl was...

Not bad photos for my little point-and-shoot camera, huh?! Zoom, baby, zoom!

Tomorrow, I'll post photos of what I think our owl friend was "hoo"-ing at...