Owls
Most people have heard the 'who, who' sound of an owl sometime if they have been listening in the woods. Much fewer have seen an owl and even fewer have taken pictures of them. Becky, my wife, and I have been some of the lucky ones to see them close enough to take pictures of them. The one above is a barred owl that we saw in 2015 in the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge near the airport in Bloomington. It was in a tree not far from the path we were walking on. I will share some more pictures we have taken of this type of owl and several others. This is not a complete list of owls in Minnesota but the types we have seen.
Barred Owls
We saw this barred owl in a museum in New Orleans in January 2015 while visiting our daughter there. It doesn't look as spirited as the ones in the wild.
This barred owl was seen at the same wildlife refuge as in the banner above. It may be the same one but a year later in 2016.
It flew to another tree but kept an eye on me.
Here it is flying through the branches to get away from me.
This was my last picture. It is lighter colored due to lighting.
While visiting our daughter in Seattle, Wa. in 2017, we went for a walk in a park just below their apartment. In a ravine area with tall majestic pine trees, this barred owl was in a tree just off the path.
On our way to Hutchinson in February 2018 we saw this dead barred owl on the shoulder. It had probably been hit by a car while flying across the road too low.
Two days later my wife saw this owl on a post along the bottom road to New Ulm.
Notice it had its back to her but in the first picture swiveled its head to look at her.
On our way home from New Ulm recently (January 3, 2021) on the bottom road my wife saw an owl in a tree near the road. We turned around and came back and this barred owl was nice enough to stay put so we could take many pictures of it. It was probably looking for prey in the valley below the road.
It again had his back to us but turned his head around to see if we were a threat.
It turned its head back to the task at hand.
Great Horned Owl.
This great horned owl was one of the raptors at a show outside the DNR Building at the 2016 Mn State Fair.
The 'horns' are tufts of feathers not horns and are not the ear either,
In 2017 my wife and I were walking out at Fort Ridgely near the parking lot by the cemetery and saw an owl flying low over the prairie north of the lot. It later landed in the tree as you see below. I zoomed in quite a lot to see that it was a great horned owl as it landed far from us.
Great horned owls are slightly larger than barred owls. They average 22" as opposed to 21" for barred owls.
I have had some interesting experiences with a horned owl several times just outside Fairfax in the small wild area that was made across highway 4 for an overflow pond for our storm sewers. There are 2 ponds and an area with eastern red cedar trees on a slightly higher area. I'm not sure it has been the same owl every time but it always is a great horned owl each time. My wife and I often go for walks in this area.
One day I glanced up into a cedar tree and this owl was looking at me.
It flew away to a tree by the bigger pond. This happened in late January of 2019.
I saw it again in a tree by the pond in March of 2020. This was shortly after we went to the International Festival of Owls in Houston Minnesota last March (2020). I will say more about this later and share some pictures we took while there. We learned about mobbing there.
This picture shows it by itself but there were lots of crows and blackbirds above it in the same tree.
They were ganging up on the owl so it would not get any of them.
In June the same thing happened to the owl. This time I was walking through the cedar trees in an area that I have seen many small animal tracks and it flew out of one of the trees and again landed in a tree by the big pond. This time I saw and heard the mobbing from the beginning.
It started with a couple crows squawking at the owl and flying around or landing nearby.
More came as they heard the others.
More came and all were squawking.
The owl seemed to stay in the same place with no attempt to defend or attack.
On November 23, 2020 Becky and I went for a walk through Flandreau State Park in New Ulm. We were on a path near the Cottonwood River and heard an owl hooting. We had to go on a side path to get closer to where we heard the owl. We wondered why it kept hooting even as we got closer.
It was high up in a tree and was still hooting.
Sometimes it looked at us and other times it did not.
It looked right at us.
It then flew to another tree farther away
Here it is in the new tree. I saw another owl fly much lower to the ground, maybe hunting. You wonder if this owl was a sentry telling its mate where to go when it saw some prey from its high vantage point.
It eventually flew away too.
Snowy Owl
I have never seen a snowy owl in the wild but Becky saw one along highway 19 one time a few years ago. We got to see one closeup at the International Owl Festival in March of 2020. They are slightly longer than barred or great horned owls (23") and usually are found only in the frozen tundra of northern Canada and Alaska. Once in a while some come this far south.
This was one of the owls that were part of a presentation at their yearly festival.
Doesn't it look like it is smiling at us?!
Here is a picture of a snowy owl that has been in Central Park in New York City the last couple weeks. It is the first seen there in over 100 years.
Screech Owls
This much smaller owl (8.5" long) is strictly nocturnal. I have never seen one but a friend of ours saw a whole family of them in their tree in Winthrop.
Who knows why this family was out during the day. Maybe they were migrating together.
Screech owls were represented in both of the two raptor presentations we saw at the state fair and at the Festival of Owls. One of the key speakers at the festival spoke about her research on screech owls. There was also a seminar where you could build a screech owl house.
State Fair
Festival of Owls
Barn Owl
I have never seen a barn owl in the wild but was able to get some good pictures of one at the Festival of Owls last March. It is smaller (16" long) than the barred, snowy or horned owls but quite a bit larger than the screech owl.
One of their barn owls got away before the presentation and they were not able to get it down from the rafters of Houston High School so we got this picture of it while they were presenting.
Other Large Owls
The great grey owl is found in bogs and meadows of northern forests. I have never seen one except for the mounted one below in the International Owl Center in Houston. This is a museum that is open year round in Houston, Mn. It is the largest owl in Minnesota (about 27' long).
Great Grey Owl
The Owl Center had an alive Eurasian Eagle Owl. It is not found in North America in the wild. It is the largest owl species in the world. Becky got some fun pictures of it
They warned us not to be too close below the eagle owl as it was very close to hacking up an owl pellet. Here it is leaning back its head and opening its beak. If I remember correctly there were some gutteral sounds too like when a cat hacks up a hairball.
Here is a link to the website of the Owl Center in Houston. It will give up to date information about what is happening including the International Festival of Owls. Below is a picture of the front of their center.
https://www.internationalowlcenter.org
