Great Gray Owl On Deck 1

This week Karla and I had a great gray owl visit our home in Grand Marais. Early in the morning it landed on the top of a small spruce by our bird feeder looking for rodents. All of a sudden it swooped down and landed on our deck railing.

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Great Gray Owl On Deck 2

It stayed for some time looking around and listening. It never found the mouse so it flew off and landed in a nearby birch.

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Great Gray Owl

After sunrise I found the owl on a birch snag not far from the house. It stayed there for most of the day. I would check on it off and on and it let me get pretty close. The hardest part was getting it to open its eyes for a photo.

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Great Gray Owl Closeup

I tried squeaking like a mouse, snapping my fingers, and throwing cattail tops along the snow. Finally I moved my foot under the snow and the owl responded. For some reason that sound caused the owl to open its beautiful yellow eyes just long enough for me to get my photo.

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Great Gray Owl 2

It came back to our bird feeder that evening. I found blood on a birch log where it either caught a mouse or one of the red squirrels that frequent the feeder. It seemed like too much blood for a mouse. Both Karla and I watched it from our living room window for quite some time before it flew to our neighbor’s house to check out their supply of mice.

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