No Place Like Home

[Tin Can]

Here they sold mining rights everywhere

Highway 51 closed, cannot find the bottom of a very big HOLE

Then got rid of Unions long ago

I used to know the First Lady Union Coal Miner

[Daniel Unkefer]

Owl in our Apple Tree by Nokton48, on Flickr

This Guy (or Girl) likes our apple tree. Sleeps in it during the day, up in the trimmed canopy. Yesterday the Owl was fighting with three large crows. Moved back into the deep woods after that. My Wife says this is a "Bard Owl". Very territorial. And Yes there are two of them! Maybe Owlets?

[Michael R]

LOL you fancy guys with your acreage. All I have is an apartment - but still no place like home.

[Drew Wiley]

Owls are fun, EXCEPT screech owls! - those can sure prevent you from sleeping.

[djdister]

We had a different type of visitor at our place...

[Drew Wiley]

We're right on a major raptor migration route flyway, but get local short distance commuters too, like Osprey. Coopers hawks are frequently around looking for tree squirrels, sometimes Goshawk too. Big Redtail hawks patrol the hills behind us, typically in pairs, plus the occasional Golden Eagle. Peregrines hate the eagles, and torment them with buzz-by attacks. This has been a good month for me seeing eagles - both Bald and Golden.

I've counted 13 species of raptors here. Swainson hawks are low and slow flying stealth hunters; I recently watched one swoop up under perched flocks of wild bandtail pigeons, panicking them in hopes of catching one before they organized into flight. Red Shoulder hawks have a similar strategy. Kites are the most fascinating. We have Red Kites and Gray Kites. The Gray Kites are almost white and the most beautiful of all our raptors; they hunt during fog and mist, blending into the overcast sky, where rodents don't even see them. They hover over local meadows, almost motionless, and then dive-bomb straight down on some hapless gopher or mouse.

I never see our owls - just hear them at night. Barn owls are beautiful, but I've never seen one in this neighborhood; they're more farmland types.

[Daniel Unkefer]

We have a "Barred Owl". See here:

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/..._Owl/overview#

These don't hoot. Check out their distinctive noise they make. That's it for sure.

[Mal Paso]

This guy doesn't hoot either. This shot is 50 feet from my front door. We hung out for almost 2 hours.

[Drew Wiley]

Oh my! I have a really surreal dumb luck 6X9 shot to develop today. I was preparing to shoot a very interesting gold rush era white school building amidst an old oak grove one morning a couple weeks ago; and right at that moment, a turkey vulture landed right atop its bell tower, and outspread its wings to warm them up. It was a high contrast silhouette situation, downright ominous looking, as if from a Hitchcock movie. The trees were framing it perfectly too. Just the sort of thing I was hoping to get.

[Tin Can]

The Dell’s

Have Turkey Hawk

500 mlles south Vulture Hawk

Both like cliiffs