Great Horned Owl - Thane Pratt
Report

Contributor

Date

Location

US-WA-Friday Harbor-Dragonfly Ln (restricted access)
San Juan, Washington, United States
Media from this location Illustrated Checklist
Map
Map Coordinates: 48.568447, -123.08053
Age
Not specified
Sex
Not specified

Observation details

The owl drops to the ground beside our housetop pick up a snake. Small: male? The snake can be seen held in the birds beak and projecting on either side of the bird. It appears to be a Western Terrestrial Garter Snake, or if not that then a Northwestern Garter Snake. There were four of us in the house at the time, and we were so astonished. The bird flew off in response to our commotion. This was at dusk, which come early where we live because of a hill to the west; sunset was about 7:45 that evening. We rarely hear Great Horned Owls and have never seen one on our property, although I do find feathers from time to time. ( the vertical lines in the photos are Bird Savers in front of the windows to prevent collisions.). The photo of the bird facing forward was taken by Cynthia Brast-Bormann.

Technical information

Model
ILCE-6500
Lens
E 70-350mm F4.5-6.3 G OSS
ISO
3200
Focal length
135 mm
Flash
Flash did not fire
f-stop
f/11.0
Shutter speed
0.02 sec
Dimensions
6000 pixels x 4000 pixels
Original file size
15.25 MB