![\"great](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/great-horned-owl-9916-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe Great Horned Owls on the Montana farm are unusually shy this summer so I only had two brief encounters with them on my recent trip. They spend most of the day in the darkness of the old granaries\u00a0and only come out to hunt at night. The granaries have cut-outs for grain augers both near the roof and at ground level so it would be easy to stick my head inside to check on them but I never\u00a0get close for fear of disturbing the birds.<\/p>\n
I did discover that there is one way of checking on them from a great distance. From just the right spot on a slightly elevated dirt road perhaps 300 yards from one of the granaries I can scope through the upper cutouts with my lens and sometimes see the birds perched on the interior rafters.<\/p>\n
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That’s what I was doing when I took this backlit shot. I just happened to fire as one of the owls lifted off from an interior rafter and flew through the far cutout on a rare daytime visit to another old granary. I don’t know what the stringy thing is hanging down but apparently it’s no problem or danger to the owls because they’ve been roosting and successfully\u00a0nesting in this granary for about 20 years that I know of.<\/p>\n
Apparently there are three owls present – a mated pair and a single juvenile from this year’s nesting season. One owl was found dead far away from this granary\u00a0earlier this summer and I suspect it was another young bird.<\/p>\n
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This is the juvenile,\u00a0perched in the far cutout you see in the first\u00a0image. Its ear tufts (horns) are only partially grown and it still has remnants of its juvenile plumage\u00a0especially on the head (grayish-white color)\u00a0where it is the last to be replaced.<\/p>\n Something interesting happened just before I took this\u00a0image and I was able to record\u00a0much of it with my camera but\u00a0most of my images from the trip have yet to be downloaded and culled so I can’t include that incident this morning.<\/p>\n I hope to\u00a0post “the rest of the story” in a day or two.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n Note: I swear that these northern Montana owls are significantly larger than those I see 700 miles further south here\u00a0in northern Utah. It’s something that (I think) I’ve noticed for years. Does anyone know if that’s possible or likely? Since the species is non-migratory\u00a0and it fits the rule of thumb that\u00a0vertebrates living in northern climates often have more massive bodies than those living further south it seems to me that it could be the case…<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Great Horned Owls on the Montana farm are unusually shy this summer so I only had two brief encounters with them on my recent trip.<\/p>\n![\"great](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/great-horned-owl-0223b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
\u00a01\/320, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n