This has been a pretty weird winter weather-wise. We have had fifty degrees and minus five so far in January. I’ve had snow, rain, sleet and hurricane force winds all on the same day. There have been torrential rains followed by bright sun. Weird. And now just to show you that I’m not the only one who’s confused our local Barred Owl has switched into a daytime critter. This bugger was in a tree branch right outside my living room window and scarfing down mice right before my eyes. Their ability to turn their heads one hundred eighty degrees is pretty bizarre. But if staying up all day means he won’t be serenading me at two a.m. then count me in on the program. These Barred Owls have one of the weirder sounding repertories among the “Children of the Night” in my neck of the woods.
I happened to have my camera there but it was equipped with the Sony 55mm f\1.8 lens. I took a bunch of shots through a double glazed window and here they are cropped and resized out of all sanity.
If you look real close you’ll see something hanging from his beak. In the rest of the shots you’ll understand the whole story
Later on in the day he showed up again and I got outside to try and take some shots with my 200mm macro. The effort was only partially successful but it will be the bulk of my photo of the day efforts for the next few days. Now what accounts for this nocturnal pest suddenly becoming a diurnal pest is beyond my weak powers of deduction. Just one more sign of the apocalypse I suppose.
Remarkable photos, photog! Amazing that you caught this guy consuming his rodent snack. Yikes!
It was bizarre to see him in the daytime. But the local news station says there is glut of food that has the owls awake in the day. And apparently their mating season is starting.