More Animals

I had to go by the church to get something this evening, so I headed out the back door. As I approached the gate, I saw the owl sitting on the fence (we've seen it around before). I could not believe how close it let me get to it on the way out.

When I came back from the church, I looked on the fence and noticed the owl was gone. I looked up and saw it on the power line above me. As I approached the gate, I saw another owl on the ground. That's when I figured out that the one on the ground was a baby owl and perhaps that is why it let me get so close earlier.

Because Amanda is an animal lover, I went inside and told her to put on her shoes. I told her about the owl and said, "Let's see how close it will let us get". The owl was just on the other side of the chain link fence...like maybe a foot from the fence. We walked within a couple feet of the fence and it just looked at us.

With an opportunity like this, we ran back in the house and grabbed the camera. This time, we walked right up to the fence and the owl still did not move. I put the camera near the ground between the links of the fence and got this picture. I cropped it to make the owl easier to see, but as you can tell from the detail in the picture (click on it to make it larger), I was able to get within two feet of the little guy.

Amanda and I watched for another 20 minutes while both parents watched the baby, swooped down to where he was and "called" to him. The baby could hop and flap his wings, but it did not appear he could fly. We wanted to "help" but did not know to put the baby owl, plus, we figured the parents had a bit more experience than we did. So we said good night, left the parents to do their "owl thing" and said a short prayer for the little guy at bed time.