Monday, May 28, 2007

I'm Back From Camping; Too Tired To Post Much

Luckily Turtle Doug and Miss Kate sent me this photo so I could post something and not have to use my brain. This is a Great Horned Owl and its baby. It's the only animal that regularly eats skunk...yuck. The female is always larger than the male. The skunk they eat is not roadkill...that's for the vultures.

The baby (on the left) is still covered with down and doesn't have the prominent ears yet but is probably ready to leave the nest. It's the largest owl I've ever seen: 18-25 inches high. That's 46-63 cm. for those outside the U.S. We all know how miserably Americans did when faced with using the metric system. That's another story entirely.

It even eats other owls; sort of like a feathered member of the Donner Party (Google it). It can be found all over North America. I've only seen one and that was at Mono Lake on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada in California. A truly majestic bird that probably has really bad breath from eating skunks. I'll rest up and write more tomorrow. Bookgroup tomorrow night. We read "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls. If you think your family was dysfunctional, read about hers; you will think you were raised by Ozzie and Harriet (for those younger folks Google will help with this as well). Well that's all for now.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

beautiful picture of the owls...I didn't know they eat skunk. I learned something today. :)