Great Horned Owl

Thank you gatorfellows! This was a fun spotting!

Thank you Alice! I need to add the story to the notes!

Ha ha Jemma! Thanks that's a great link! I WISH owls were easier to see! I have only ever seen Great Horned Owls in the wild! I would love to find some wild barn owls or screech owls in the near future!

Thanks Joshua, Karen and Cindy! This owl and what I think was his sibling both had little scraggly "horns". He was pissed so his feather tufts were down in most of my pictures including the ones above. I really do think these were the two babies, but if they were, I wonder where the parents were?!

Thank you everyone! Ava, I wasn't sure if this owl was playing or trying to get something. It was in the middle of the day which was odd! I was driving home from an appointment yesterday and saw this owl bouncing around on the ground! I parked my car and started walking over to the old cotton wood tree that he was under. (Same tree that the great horned owls have nested in this year.) This owl instantly saw me and flew away. I decided to sit quietly for quite some time near some bushes and just watch. I was very lucky because a family of American Kestrels scared this owl right back over to me. He literally flew 2 feet above my head. (For a split second I though he was going to attack me, just because he flew so close!) He landed in the tree in the above picture, preened and got comfortable until he realized I was there. Then he flew off to join another Great Horned Owl in a low tree several yards away. At that point I didn't bother them any more! Christy, I'm honestly not sure but if I had to guess, I would guess these are indeed the babies that fledged near my house this year! The parents had two chicks that fledged and I saw two owls that had (for lack of a better term) funny looking heads. If they are not the babies, they could be the parents molting, but they acted like young inexperienced owls!