Great Gray Owl in Winter

The morning brought steady snow and diffused  sunlight.  I toured some of the West Bragg Creek roads to see if the moose were foraging in some of their regular haunts.  I saw a few deer but none of their much larger cousins.  I did get to see two great gray owls (strix nebulosa) in two different locations.

Click for larger versions of each image.

These photos are all of the second bird that I watched for about 30 minutes as it hunted from a couple of different perches.

It was a great morning.  I hadn’t seen one of the phantoms of the north for a couple of months and was beginning to understand why phantom and ghost are names often applied to these beautiful raptors.

As a post script, I was outside tonight putting lights up and heard a couple owls hooting back and forth for about an hour near my backyard.  I’ll be trying to find them over the next couple of days.