While visiting my sister, in Nova Scotia, over Christmas I was fortunate enough to see a barred owl.
“Do you want to walk around the lake,’ she asked.
I was a bit hesitant until she said, “ There has been a barred owl spotted there.”
Off we went for the walk. I was lamenting I only had my phone to take a picture if we saw the owl. I needed my trusty Canon with a scope.
Lo and behold the owl was sitting in the tree where my sister first saw him. When he saw us he climbed a little higher on the tree.
The only owl I had seen close up before was the
Great Horned Owl. The Barred Owl has the rounded head but doesn’t have the ear tuffs that look like horns.
In black and white
Mallard ducks in the Oathill Lake.
In black and white
Partial view of the lake.
Photo in black and white.
Mostly the path is not on the boardwalk but winds through the woods surrounding the lake.
I was happy to have gone on this walk and the highlight was seeing the Barred Owl.
Photos have been taken with Moto e cell phone
All photos are mine unless sourced.
From Wikipedia
Close-up of a Barred Owl, Ontario, Canada.
The barred owl is considered somewhat subdued and drab in coloration compared to the sometimes rich coloring of other sympatric owls.[28] Overall, this owl is greyish-brown or brown. The brownish color extends from the head to the back. Barred owls are scalloped with white bars on the mantle and the back, bearing as well some whitish spotting on the wing coverts.[9][7] The underside has a pale creamy gray-brown base color (ranging into dirty white in the palest individuals) overlaid about the throat and upper chest with horizontal, slightly crescent-shaped barring (hence its common name), while the belly is boldly streaked in a vertical pattern. The streaking is usually blackish, dusky brown, or sometimes rufescent- (reddish-) brown.[4][28] The head is fairly large (although not especially so for a species in Strix) and rounded with no ear tufts.[29][30] The facial disc is pale grayish-brown with darker yet subtle concentric lines.[9] The bill is pale straw-yellow (occasionally showing a mild greenish tint) while the cere (a bare structure at the base of the beak) is "horn-colored".[9][28] Its eyes are of a blackish-brown color, this being the only true owl of the eastern United States which has brown eyes; all others have yellow eyes.[31] The eyes may appear intensely black in the field and, although large, are fairly closely set.[28]
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