Baby Great Horned Owls

I saw a lot of the same birds at Tule that I saw at both Bear River and Malheur, so I don’t feel compelled to show those birds again. But there was an unexpected special moment at Petroglyph Point. Despite past experience, I am a sucker for petroglyphs so I couldn’t resist the short drive after taking the Tule Lake road tour. Unfortunately, once again I found that the petroglyphs had been cordoned off to prevent vandalism so there was a limited number of petroglyphs to see and many of them had been defaced.

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What really made the stop special wasn’t the petroglyphs, but, rather, the unexpected birds I saw there. There was another group looking at the petroglyphs when I arrived and one of them spotted this baby Great Horned Owl staring at her.

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They were so well disguised that at first she thought she was looking at a petroglyph. In fact, they were so well disguised that neither of us saw the second baby located in the bottom right corner of the shot.

This second, long shot more clearly shows the second owl, though I had to do some serious photoshopping to make both the own in the direct sunlight and the one in the shadows visible.

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Thank goodness for RAW format.

I was surprised how bold the one young owl was as it moved around and followed us with its eyes as we walked around to get a different angle on it.

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I kept looking around for parents but couldn’t spot them. I’ve never been this close to a Great Horned Owl before, and I was a little worried about how protective the parents might get.

2 thoughts on “Baby Great Horned Owls”

  1. Wow! Love these photos so much. It’s incredible how the baby owls blend right in with the petroglyphs. It’s like they are made of stone and lichen. Truly beautiful, Loren.

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