northeast-flora-and-fauna

On iNaturalist I got a validation today for one of my owl pictures from 5 years ago, so let's do a Great Horned Owl for Throwback Thursday. I suspect this picture came from back when Duke Farms was running periodic bird watching programs since the picture was taken before the core part of the property is open to the public (7:58 am). Great Horned Owls is probably our largest year-round owl, and thus near the top of the nocturnal food chain. They're presumed to have little sense of smell (like most birds) which probably makes them one of the few animals to prey on skunks. (I suspect Red-tailed Hawks would also go after skunks, but since skunks are nocturnal they're more likely to be found by owls.) Crows understand the predacious nature of Great Horned Owls; if crows discover a GHO in their area, they'll almost certainly get together and try and harass the owl into leaving. They have an attention-getting relative. Despite the lack of "horns" and their white c...

Someone I know (at least a little bit) passed away this week, Uggla the Great Horned Owl. Uggla was an Ambassador Owl residing at The Raptor Trust . I got the following in my Facebook feed this morning. It is with heavy heart that I bring sad news to you today: one of our very dearest ambassador birds, Uggla, the Great Horned Owl, has passed on. Uggla was an almost unimaginable 40 years old. In the research I have done, I believe he may have been the second-oldest Great Horned Owl that ever lived, and he lived almost every day of those 40 years right here at 1390 White Bridge Rd, Millington, NJ. In the early spring of 1980, I was a freshman in high-school. The backyard wildlife rehab facility that my parents ran on our property had not yet become The Raptor Trust. It was still The New Jersey Raptor Association at that point: not yet incorporated and without the 501(c)3 nonprofit status that would follow. A “fledgling” organization, one might say. But Len and Diane knew their bird...