A Glimpse Of The Pine Grove Owls - Fall Update

 In past years (referring to 2021 and 2020), Ive found that great horned owls get much more loud and territorial during late fall than any other time of the year. In fact, that's how I discovered the great horned owl pair at Juniper Hill, and in the Pine Grove. 2022 is the first year when I have made any posts or taken any photos of great horned owls during the spring, and that's only because I realized the pine grove pair had a pair of fledgling owlets. That post is linked here: Great Horned Owl Family In The Pine Grove. This year, though, has been frustrating. Even after October 15th, The Pine Grove has been silent. I started doing checks in that forest for owls about twice a week, and have had little luck besides finding a few owl pellets and a single, un-locatable hoot. This is a recording I took on  my phone a few months ago, if you don't know what that sounds like: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/134859535

My luck finally changed today, on November 1st. I took my usual walk around. I got about 200 feet into the woods, when a large bird flapped out of a white pine tree, and landed not far from it. Finally one of the owls. By the time i got to the tree, I lost track of it. It had clearly launched from the tree and escaped while I was looking away breifly. I found the same owl again about a half hour later. I tried following it when it took off, but I lost it again. I had been re-finding it, and re-losing the skittish owl for about 2 hours... Bam. I was giving up, and a dark lump in a tree caught my eye...

Of course, less than 5 seconds after I started taking photos it it, It flew off. I tried taking a flight shot, but my camera's autofocus thought I was going for the dead branch in between us.

I hope I see them again, before the pair has its next batch of youngsters, in March,