Any birders here? Great Horned Owl question

For the past few weeks, I've been hearing Great Horned Owls in the city park next to my house. Some nights it sounds like they're hooting right outside my bedroom window (while I'm trying to sleep :tongue2! But I just can't manage to catch sight of them, and I really want to because I've never gotten a very good look at a wild owl. Today I finally found the nest, and it's not 50 feet from my window so that explains the noise, I guess :lol3:.

The female (I assume) is sitting in the nest like a good mama, I can just see her head and "ears" poking out of the top. I read that the male usually stays within sight of the nest so he can defend her/it if needed. So I looked in every tree I thought he might be in, and I couldn't find him anywhere. How close do they normally stay? Also, I'd love to find owl pellets, and I looked all around under the nest tree, and nothing. Do they yak them up near the nest, or do they do it somewhere else so as not to expose the nest location?

This is so cool! I'll see if I can get some pictures but the nest is WAY up high and I don't think my camera is that good. But I'll give it a try on the next clear day.

Yes, owls ARE so cool. I have seen one up close (landed on my roof) but it was night time so it hard to see clearly. It was gigantic. And so so loud. Hard to believe how much noise he could generate. I have also seen a nesting family very high up in a tree but didn't notice any pellets.

Try to take some pictures if you can. Would love to see them.

I love Great Horned owls! One of the things I miss about living with my Mom is the sound of one hooting me to seep at night. I've only once heard one here--and only for one night. We did have a Screech Owl last summer--again, only one night.

They are HUGE owls, BTW--18"-24" tall, and have been known to kill cats, although they normally go for much smaller prey.

I am sort of worried about the ferals. . .but the park is full of rabbits and squirrels, so they really shouldn't want to risk injury by taking a cat, right? :/ And my ferals are big and fat, so hopefully they'll think they're too big.

I think they stole the Cooper's Hawks' nest. The hawks have raised their babies in the park for the last 3 years, but I think they got booted out this time :lol3:. I saw them a few blocks over so I guess they found a new place. There were little screech owls also raising babies in the park about 3-4 years ago, but I haven't heard them in the past 2 years or so. I only saw them once or twice but I would hear their weird noises every night.

I think if there's easier smaller prey, your ferals are fairly safe. I have to say though that after I saw the owl on my roof, I didn't let Aria onto the deck unless I was there too. She mostly slept under the bench or table, but that owl was huge! We also have hawks in the area, but most of them (mostly red-tailed hawks) aren't big enough to take a cat.

Since I live in a heavily wooded area, I hear owls all the time, but rarely see any.  Hawks, on the other hand, are very common here.I even have bald eagles fly over occasionally. That's why my ladies will never be outside the porch, unless in a carrier.

We have owls across the road in the woods. I love to hear them calling to each other.

A couple times we would go to visit my parents, who spent their summers camping in a local state park. We'd go up and have dinner and then sit by the fire until very late at night. We'd hear the owls calling and sometimes, Dad was able to call them in very close to us.

We think that's what happened to Tabby's sister. When they were kicked out of their first home as kittens, Tabby made it over the hill and down to our neighbor's house and I brought her home. We think an owl or a hawk got her sister. Tabby doesn't realize just how lucky she was, that she made it over that hill.

Heh, I hadn't seen O.J. (one of my ferals) in about 2 weeks, and I had just about convinced myself they got him . But I just this minute saw him walking down the sidewalk, bold as you please . . .I wonder where he's been. Of course, I don't keep a schedule for my ferals, I just keep an autofeeder full of kibble all the time, so I don't see them consistently. But usually I see him every 2-3 days, even though I can easily go a month without seeing his sister. Well, I'm glad for that, I'd hate to have to think of the owls that way!

I still haven't seen Mr Owl, even though I go walk around the park looking in trees every day after work. I did get some pictures of Mrs Owl in the nest, just with my cell phone, but you can kind of see her face peeking out. I'll try to get them posted soonish. Mrs Cooper's Hawk showed up and took exception to her nest being stolen, but after a few hours of squawking about it, she left. Hopefully she finds another suitable location soon!

We've lived next to several Horned Owl nests for 5 years now and have never had one of our adult ferals disappear. The neighbors have had several kittens disappear though. But since there are huge raccoons and who knows what else around here I'd hate to blame them. Two feral moms have raised two litters a piece here before we had them spayed and those kittens all grew up. We lose a lot more wild cats around here to speeding cars than to predators.

Well, like I said, I doubt an owl would choose to take a big heavy predator when there are tons of small tasty prey animals in the park. It's also goose migration time so he just has to pop on down to the creek to get himself a nice fat goose. But. . .I worry. What feral caretaker doesn't? I'm sure that traffic and the neighbor's dog (and the neighbors!) are much more of a threat, but they've been dealing with those threats their entire lives, while the owls are new so I worried they wouldn't know how to avoid them.

Interestingly, there's a squirrel I've been noticing who has scars, really deep serious scars (all healed now), that make it clear he was almost taken by a bird of prey at some point in his life. I'm surprised he survived his injuries---squirrels don't have vets! I'm pulling for him to avoid being eaten, but I would imagine he's learned how to avoid large birds after that experience!