This guy has been hanging around our house for a couple of years.
Loves the porch and plays havoc on the field mice!!

Nice!

That’s pretty sweet! Unless you think owls are a bad omen...in that case watch out!!

beautiful, some people don't like hawks or owls, we do. only lost one chicken to a redtail in 28 years

Barn or barred?

That's a barred owl; dark eyes and vertical bars on the chest. Very similar to the spotted owl; the bars on a spotted owl's chest go horizontal. Both species will crossbreed with each other, the barred owl is more aggressive and is moving into spotted owl habitat in the western US. The crossbreeding is going to eliminate the spotted owl as a species.

I like owls.

Raised a little barred owl long long time ago. He could eat 5 mice at meal time. Had many friends hunting house sparrows at night in barns then froze them for feeding time. Had to pull the head off the sparrows. For some reason he wouldn't eat them without doing this. Turned him loose when he could fly. After about three weeks by himself he got fried on a transformer.

Very Cool !

I'm not as fond of them as most of you! I have tried to keep guineas around this place, and If you can't get them to go to roost in a pen, Those dang things will kill every one of them. They are very hard on all kinds of birds especially pheasants and quail.

Yep - Barred Owl.
Got a Great Horned Owl that shows up in a pine tree occasionally but never had my phone with me when I spot him.

Spotted an Owl late one night in my pine tree, then before I knew it, it just glided away in absolute silence.
Owls are amazing creatures.

One day, I woke up and when I let my dog out, to my horror and surprise - I found a headless hawk inside - actually on top of one of my sit on top kayaks - and I showed the pictures to my neighbor who felt that this was an owl at work.

That's a very beautiful picture of a very special friend you have there.

I didn't know owls kill hawks.

The headless thing is a dead give away. I have eaten some of my guineas that they knock out of a tree and eat their head and leave the rest. Grrr

In my experience, owls eat just the head off of rabbits, chickens, guineas, ducks and German shorthaired pointer puppies. Like all predators, owls should have their population managed and owls that prey on stock should be allowed to be culled. Most species of owls, like other birds of prey, are now overly common and a nuisance.

Keith

A guy down the road from me had some guineas and he never could get them to roost in a coop.
One evening he called me to come over. When I got there we walked back toward his barnyard and he pointed up to the tree line that borders his place from some Nat'l Forest ground. There were 5 owls and one redtail hawk sitting on limbs with their eyes glued on the remainder of his guineas.
He tapped me on the shoulder and said - "Supper time".

Great picture.