Great Horned Owl Nest...Minnesota

On Wednesday, 02-24-21, I went to another area in hopes of photographing a Great Horned Owl. Previously, I’ve been in this area 5 times and I’ve seen the Great Horned Owl three times, but I haven’t been able to photograph it.

This is an older stand of very large deciduous trees that is pretty open. I have a general area where I have seen the owl, but it always flies off before I’m even close to it.

Today, I got in this general area and once again I saw the owl fly off in the distance. I stopped and watched it land, then it immediately flew off again. I continued to watch and lost sight of the owl behind some trees way in the distance. I thought the owl must have landed in another tree or it continued flying directly away from me which was unlikely because it would have had to abruptly change course otherwise I should have seen it flying past the trees in the distance.

I started walking to the tree that I originally saw the owl fly from when out of the corner of my eye I saw an owl flying the other way. This was the opposite direction the first owl flew. It seemed to me that this was another owl based upon where it flew from which I don’t believe was the area where I lost sight of the first owl.

I continued walking toward the tree where I saw the first owl fly from when I noticed a large cavity in another large tree in the area where I lost sight of the first owl. That would explain why I didn’t see it continue flying after it got behind some other trees blocking my view. I glassed the cavity and could see a couple owl feathers inside.

I took a few photos from different angles with my long lens. The tree at the cavity is at least 2 feet in diameter. What I can’t tell is if the cavity drops down toward the back and a female owl could be on the nest or if the nest is the actual area that can be seen in the photos. If that’s the case I don’t see any eggs or an owl. One of the photos I counted six feather with the possibility of one more.  

Based upon what I saw today was if there was only one owl it wasn’t on the nest when I first saw it and if there was two owls then the first owl probably went inside the cavity and the second owl was probably the male that flew from another tree.

Now that I  have a possible nest site I don’t need to go back for awhile.