Baby Owls in Golden Gate Park

Great news everyone! And I do mean great, because Great Horned Owls are nesting in Golden Gate Park. Well, probably not anymore, because even at the time I took these shots, a few months ago, they were getting kinda close to fledging I think. Big shout out to local bird-friend Eliya who gave me the hot tip and showed me the owls. These good good baby owls were shot around sunset, so the pictures I took aren't the best. Go see them next spring, why not. They're very good.



Great Horned Owlet aka. Fluffems aka. Sweet Baby Owl aka. Robert "DOWNy" Jr.
Bison Paddock, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California, USA
April 2017
Member of the True Owl Family
§A Glaring of Owls§
★The Provincial Bird of Alberta, Canada★

~real bird myth~ Pretty much any group of people who came into contact with this bird came to believe it had some kind of supernatural powers. The Pima thought the owls were reincarnated warriors, while the Passamaquoddy thought of them as friendly spirits whose calls could make people fall in love. The Hopi saw them as harbingers of warm weather and good harvests, and the Zuni used their feathers in battle to imbue themselves with some of the owl's powers of stealth. If there's anything everyone seems to be able to agree on, it's that the owls are not what they seem.

This is their mother. She has had it up to here with their shenanigans.

And these are the babies. I think there were three all together, but I never got a good shot with all of them. They:

Are always attached to their phones
Just want things handed to them, must've been all those participation trophies
Use all this slang I don't understand
Why can't they work their way through college?

Just kidding, I love these baby owls, and to prove it, here's an amazing .gif I made of them from some of Eliya's footage. May it see you through some hard times.

Great Horned Owl

Great Horned Owl aka. Tiger Owl aka. Hoot Owl
Point Reyes, California
December 2014
Member of the True Owl Family
§A Bazaar of Owls§

~true bird fact~ Let's talk food. Great Horned Owls have the most diverse diet of any North American bird of prey. They eat rats, rabbits, reptiles, raptors, and other things that don't even start with R. Yeah, you saw right, these things eat ospreys and other birds of prey. They kill using mostly constriction and their talons close with the strength of a much larger bird of prey, like a Golden Eagle. GHO's sometimes kill things that are too big to eat all at once, so they store the body someplace cold to keep the meat good, defrosting it when they need to with their own body heat. Crows hate these guys, mostly because they are death incarnate. You can tell from that picture up there that they desperately want to be able to kill humans.

Scheming
Believes in superstitious or spiritual things.. 'magic', etc
Judges those who don't read harshly
Tramples enemies under foot [claw] without mercy

Sora & Martin Luther King Regional Shoreline

Sora aka. Sora Rail, aka. Sora Crake
Arrowhead Marsh, Oakland, California, USA
December 2014
Member of the Rails, Coots, and Gallinules Family
§An Expression of Soras§

~true bird fact~ Soras are the most widely distributed and populous member of the Rail family in North America. They are also the most frequently hunted. Who knows why people do these things, but anyway, their population has remained fairly stable because of their high breeding rate. Good job Soras!

Silent defender of the marsh
Has an air of knowing everything, but really just does a lot of research
Strongly committed to ethical behavior, sometimes to the detriment of his own life
Never really feels like he has done enough

Other denizens of Arrowhead Marsh at MLK Regional Shoreline, In beautiful Oakland, Califonia:

Great Egret
has put a new focus on spending time with the family




American Coots
heard about a really great sale

Black-necked Stilt chronic single-hood is not as fun as it used to be

Burrowing Owl
on sabbatical to write a book

Burrowing Owl, Bird of the Year 2013: Portrait of a Champion

Burrowing Owl
Berkeley, California, USA
Member of the True Owl Family
§A Parliament of Owls§

The Burrowing Owl occupies an interesting evolutionary niche that both endangers it and assists in its long-term survival. They live in open grassy fields, which are generally perfect places to build stuff. Hence, the Burrowing Owl is endangered in Canada, Threatened in Mexico, and a species of special concern in Florida and most of the west, including my own California.

However, he finds sanctuary in some unusual places. Golf courses and airports, both of which people build in abundance, have been known to attract these guys in significant numbers due to their similarity with the owl's natural habitat. Furthermore, they're doing just fine in Central and South America, where the clear-cutting of the rain forest is actually increasing the size of their habitat.

Unlike most owls, this guy is active all day and all night. He catches ground based prey by running after it with his long legs, or swooping down from low perches. He basically eats everything, and even lures insects to his burrow (which, sometimes are dug by other animals, but that he can dig himself) using animal droppings.

With this intriguing background, is it any wonder that Burrowing Owl is 2013's Bird of the Year, as named by California's Audubon Society? No, it is not any wonder. Your Amateurnithologist was granted a rare interview session with Burrowing Owl following his victory, and found out that he's much more than a pretty face. Burrowing Owl has a sharp, brooding intelligence to him that you wouldn't expect. And you can't argue with success.

Burrowing Owl states that his motivation is not just to entertain and delight. Owling is art, he feels, and he hopes that people really think about his work. He hopes to take on more challenging, independent projects in the future.

Burrowing Owl had strong words for 'haters' that your blogger will not repeat here. He also doesn't like when people call him 'cute', 'fluffy wuffy', or 'a little cutie'. Burrowing Owl feels that his success is earned, frequently pointing out that he "started from the bottom." He expressed love and appreciation for his fans. "I couldn't have done it without you, you're the reason I do what I do when I do what I do" he stated. 

Burrowing Owl, congratulations! You are Bird of the Year 2013.

Barn Owl

Barn Owl

Roseville, California, USA
Member of the Owl Family
*true owl fact*~ Owls have asymetrically placed ears. This allows them to have a greater degree of accuracy when detecting where sounds are coming from. Helpful when hunting small things at night, I'm sure.

*true bird fact that is actually relevant to this specific bird*~ The Barn Owl has an astounding range, spanning six continents, 44 million square kilometers. Your amateurnithologist wants to say that this makes it the most widely spread owl, but you never know with this kind of thing. Additionally, the Barn Owl has a reputation all over the world as a bird with a connection to the spirit world. In some places he is called the Devil Owl, Death Owl, Demon Owl, or Hobgoblin Owl.

Is not actually evil, but comes and goes freely in the dark places of the world
Perpetually sleepy
Legendarily good cook, sought after for bird parties
In bird legend, ferries birds who have died over to the other side (the bird version of the grim reaper)
Not too worried about how things are going to turn out