Today, I was out taking pictures of the kids sledding, and luckily, I kept my camera on me while I went to bring the trash to the dumpster. While I was there I heard the crows going mental. I assumed that they were harassing what looked to be a hawk, but when I looked through the camera lens, I realized it was an owl. There is something really cool about seeing an owl in the day time, in nature. The crows must have been attacking it while it was in flight because some of its feathers appeared to be mangled, and they were not touching the owl while it was in the tree. There must have been 6-8 crows all vocally harassing the owl while they had it surrounded in the tree.
I am no ornithologist, but based on my wikipedia research, it appears to be a great horned owl. They are territorial when mated, and December through February is mating season for owls. It also says that an adult owl has no real predators, but may get into confrontations with eagles, snowy owls and other great horned owls. It looked to me that these crows were giving it a pretty hard time too. Hopefully, this is its territory and we will get to see more of him (I am assuming it is a him, because the males are smaller than the females with the average height being 18-27in, and he was no bigger than the crows).
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