Hoot (female Great Horned Owl) 01-28-22 (Photos and Video)

 Hoot (female Great Horned Owl) 01-28-22

On Friday, 01-28-22, I took a friend, Kathryn, out to the woods to see if we could find Hoot. She’s an avid owl lover and has been sworn to secrecy about the location and has gone through the necessary background checks. :)

While walking to the area I spotted Give a Hoot high up in a tree who was still some distance away from us. I pointed out Give a Hoot, but if you’re not used to seeing an owl in the wild it may take a little time to see it.

We stood there watching him for a few minutes. I visually checked around for Hoot, but I didn’t see her.

We continued walking while scanning the area for Hoot. We were now coming around to the backside of the tree, when I saw just a small portion of the tail of what appeared to be Hoot.  We couldn’t see her when we first spotted Give a Hoot or while we were walking until we got pretty close to the opposite side of the tree. We took a few more steps and now I could see both owls.

We were too close to the tree to get any good photographs because they were up so high and we were also behind them. Hoot doesn’t normally look behind her just for me to photograph her. If I want to photograph her I have to get to the front of her.  The reason we ended up on the opposite side of the tree was we were going to walk past Give a Hoot looking for Hoot further back in the woods. Give a Hoot is always camera shy, so its unlikely he would stick around for me to set-up anyways.

Give a Hoot flew from his perch a short distance away.  I walked his general direction, since he went the direction I needed  to go to photograph Hoot from the front. Kathryn stayed with Hoot, because Hoot would stay where she was and wouldn’t fly away so this would give Kathryn more time watching her.

l almost got a photo of Give a Hoot, but he had to leave before I was all set up. I was close to getting a shot, but that’s what usually happens when I try to photograph him. I’m beginning to think he can recognize my camera. I can get everything all set up, but when I grab my camera he needs to suddenly leave.

Since I was to the front of Hoot, Kathryn walked in a wide arc over to me. Today was a little more challenging finding a good spot to photograph, because of the many branches in the way.

While we watched Hoot sleeping some crows flew overhead and they were talking to each other. Hoot woke up and made a contact Hoot. This has happened several times in the past that she’ll make a contact hoot, similar to the territorial call, while the crows are around. I’m not sure why the crows don’t circle back and mob her. They seem to just ignore this call from her.

Kathryn left after about an hour while I stayed with Hoot who was sleeping. Fifteen to twenty minutes later Hoot woke up and was very alert. Hoot made several different calls including some conversational chitters while Give a Hoot can be heard returning some of her calls. I had the video running while they were calling back and forth. I put together this video with some subtitles of the different calls Hoot is making.
 
Hoot flew off to another nearby perch where she stayed perched for a couple minutes, before flying to another perch where she went back to sleep. This is the same perch she flew to on 01-26-22 . While in between naps on this perch she did some preening.


When I was photographing her on the 26th she left that perch and flew to a large snag closer to me. There are several small branches that are in the way of a good photograph so I was going to walk around a little to look for a possible place to put my tripod in case she flew there again. Then I thought how likely would  it be for her to fly there again, because the snag is no more than 10 yards away and she’s not that high off the ground so I stopped looking.

Well, when she was ready to get closer to Give a Hoot she flew to this same snag. I scrambled to move my tripod, but with her not being very high up I had to lower the front of my lens which raised the back of my camera. Now I couldn’t see through my viewfinder very well. I was standing on my toes trying to see her and photograph her at the same time. She didn’t stay there as long as she did a couple days earlier.

She then flew off toward Give a Hoot.

 

Hoot (female Great Horned Owl) 01-26-22

Hoot (female Great Horned Owl) 01-26-22

On, Wednesday, 01-26-22, I walked in the woods looking for the owls. First thing I would do would be to see if Hoot, the female Great Horned Owl, was still in her territory. Last year by this time she had left this general area and had been staying close to where she began nesting in early February. If I didn’t find her then I would go look for Benny the Barred Owl.

I found Hoot pretty quickly once I was in her area. She was on a perch where I found her a few days ago when it took me  2 1/4 hours to locate her. That was the first time I found her in that tree. This time she was perched on the same branch facing the opposite direction to keep the strong wind out of her face.

Hoot slept while I set up my tripod with my camera. I was too close to take any video. She wouldn’t fit in the frame. There’s a lot of smaller trees with many smaller branches preventing me to get further back to get a clean shot of her.

I was there only about ten minutes when she snapped her head to her right and stared for several seconds before turning her head back in my direction and doing a contact call. This told me Give a Hoot must have just flew into the area, but I couldn’t see him. Hoot then proceeded back to napping.

Hoot would wake up occasionally to do another contact call and did some preening. A couple times she woke up while listening to something in the distance with her eyes were wide open.

Hoot flew from this perch which was earlier in the day than most days. Although, she only flew at most 10 yards. Just as quickly she flew almost back to where I originally found her. I took to a photo of her in this new perch while continuing to watch her. It appeared she went back to napping with her back to me.

I walked to the front of her where I watched her napping and got a few more photos. Again, she did some more preening.

It was about 1650 hrs and she was getting ready to fly off to be with Give a Hoot or that’s what I thought. She ended up flying down to the top of an old, large snag that was only 10 yards away from me. She landed with her back to me before jumping down on the other side of the snag, but now she was facing toward me.

After she turned around she made several territorial calls. Some of them while she was looking directly at me. Once I got some photos I finally looked at the back of my camera and noticed that a small branch was right in her face while she was calling “to me”. Bummer… I moved my tripod just a little to avoid most of the small branches the best I could. I didn’t include any images of her looking directly at me while she was actually calling because the branch was directly in her face, although I included a couple of less distracting images of her in the same spot before I moved my tripod.

Earlier, when I posted a single image of her facing me I said she must have gotten me confused with Give A Hoot because he was behind her not too far away. Eventually, Hoot realized her mistake since I wasn’t returning her calls. She flew off in his direction. While I was packing up she and Give a Hoot were calling back and forth.

Today I spent two hours and 50 minutes with her. 

 

 

Hoot (female Great Horned Owl) 01-23-22 (VIDEO)

Hoot’s Behavior while Give a Hoot, the male, is being mobbed by several crows…

On Sunday, 01-23-22, I went out to look for the owls again. The temperature was 5 degrees F with a slight breeze, although in the woods it was very comfortable. When I got to the Great Horned Owl territory I saw Give a Hoot, the male, perched high up in a large oak tree. Give a Hoot is always on guard, so I never approach him by walking directly toward him. I took a few steps and looked up again and now I see Hoot, the female. They are maybe 5 feet from one another in the same tree.

Hoot is always laid back, so I only have to be concerned with Give a Hoot while trying to get in position to set up my tripod. I got to a spot and began setting up my tripod. He actually moved a little which would provide me with a better photograph. I had just put my camera on my fluid head and was about to take my first photo when he turned around on the branch and flew off. Hoot woke up and looked off in the distance, so that told me that someone was in the area. It wasn’t long before I heard lots of noise coming from two people. Once I heard the noise I took my camera off my tripod so it wasn’t as obvious what I was doing.  

Once they were gone I moved my camera onto Hoot who has already back to sleep. While waiting for her to wake up I took a couple video clips of her sleeping.

While waiting for her to wake up several crows began making a lot of noise nearby. I turned the video back on since they probably spotted Give a Hoot. I could see several crows and finally I spotted Give a Hoot about 35 yards away. They were mobbing him for several minutes. Hoot did some calls that sound like territorial calls, but they are more of a contact call with Give a Hoot. These calls are made without the forward leaning posture of the typical territorial calls. I watched her make her second call that started out as a clucky chitter or maybe a staccato Hoot, then proceeding to do a call similar to the territorial call. Again, without the normal forward leaning posture. She made a few more calls before the crows left Give a Hoot alone.

A couple crows spotted me and began to circle overhead. Hoot looked upward and followed them around with her eyes while moving her around, but they never spotted her. Eventually the crows got bored and left the area.

Hoot did some grooming and yawning before she fell back to sleep, so I just waited for her to wake up again. I was getting a little hungry while waiting and I had an energy bar in my pocket.  While opening the wrapper that made more noise than I expected because of the cold and it also was very quiet in the woods. Hoot who had her head cocked slightly upwards with her eyes closed sleeping, but when she heard the noise from the wrapper she slowly move her head slightly downwards toward me and barely opened her eyes that appeared only as silts. She then slowly moved her head back in the same position prior to the wrapper noise and went back to sleep.

Sometime afterwards Hoot made another call to Give a Hoot who returned her call. I didn’t have the video going when she made this call, but when I turned it on she was alert and looking in his direction doing some closed mouth conversational chitter calls with him. The call is so soft that it can’t be heard, but you can see her body jerking while she is talking to him.

Since Hoot was already awake she started to actively begin hunting. While I had the video running she began to focus on something on the ground to her left. She began to move her head around to zero in on her possible next meal.

She flew from her perch and landed in another tree close by. I watched her awhile to see if she was going to grab a meal before I moved my tripod get get a better view of her. While I was photographing her she was still very interested in something on the ground that was slightly behind her. She moved again before I decided to leave.

The light was fading fast so I packed up my gear and went looking for Benny the Barred Owl. I quickly walked some of his area, but I didn’t find him.  

While walking around in Benny’s area I heard Hoot and Give a Hoot calling back and forth.

Another interesting day in the woods with the owls…

***My description of the different calls that Hoot make are based upon my observations of her and are my interpretations from Karla Bloem’s 2009 paper, “ Great Horned Owl Bubo Virginians vocalizations and associated behaviors.” Karla is the Executive Director with the International Owl Center.***

 “Spectrographically, Great Horned Owl calls were divided into three main categories: hoots, chitters, and squawks. These categories were further subdivided into five types of hoots, four types of chitters, and five types of squawks based on inflection, number of syllables, duration, pitch, volume, and behavioural context. Two types of non-vocal communication were also distinguished: hisses and bill clacking.”  

 I have been photographing and observing Hoot for 1 1/2 years, and has always been very comfortable in my presence.

Hoot (female Great Horned Owl) 01-23-22

Hoot (female Great Horned Owl) 01-23-22

Hoot’s Behavior while Give a Hoot, the male, is being mobbed by several crows…

On Sunday, 01-23-22, I went out to look for the owls again. The temperature was 5 degrees F with a slight breeze, although in the woods it was very comfortable. When I got to the Great Horned Owl territory I saw Give a Hoot, the male, perched high up in a large oak tree. Give a Hoot is always on guard, so I never approach him by walking directly toward him. I took a few steps and looked up again and now I see Hoot, the female. They are maybe 5 feet from one another in the same tree.

Hoot is always laid back, so I only have to be concerned with Give a Hoot while trying to get in position to set up my tripod. I got to a spot and began setting up my tripod. He actually moved a little which would provide me with a better photograph. I had just put my camera on my fluid head and was about to take my first photo when he turned around on the branch and flew off. Hoot woke up and looked off in the distance, so that told me that someone was in the area. It wasn’t long before I heard lots of noise coming from two people. Once I heard the noise I took my camera off my tripod so it wasn’t as obvious what I was doing.  

Once they were gone I moved my camera onto Hoot who has already back to sleep. While waiting for her to wake up I took a couple video clips of her sleeping.

While waiting for her to wake up several crows began making a lot of noise nearby. I turned the video back on since they probably spotted Give a Hoot. I could see several crows and finally I spotted Give a Hoot about 35 yards away. They were mobbing him for several minutes. Hoot did some calls that sound like territorial calls, but they are more of a contact call with Give a Hoot. These calls are made without the forward leaning posture of the typical territorial calls. I watched her make her second call that started out as a clucky chitter or maybe a staccato Hoot, then proceeding to do a call similar to the territorial call. Again, without the normal forward leaning posture. She made a few more calls before the crows left Give a Hoot alone.

A couple crows spotted me and began to circle overhead. Hoot looked upward and followed them around with her eyes while moving her around, but they never spotted her. Eventually the crows got bored and left the area.

Hoot did some grooming and yawning before she fell back to sleep, so I just waited for her to wake up again. I was getting a little hungry while waiting and I had an energy bar in my pocket.  While opening the wrapper that made more noise than I expected because of the cold and it also was very quiet in the woods. Hoot who had her head cocked slightly upwards with her eyes closed sleeping, but when she heard the noise from the wrapper she slowly move her head slightly downwards toward me and barely opened her eyes that appeared only as silts. She then slowly moved her head back in the same position prior to the wrapper noise and went back to sleep.

Sometime afterwards Hoot made another call to Give a Hoot who returned her call. I didn’t have the video going when she made this call, but when I turned it on she was alert and looking in his direction doing some closed mouth conversational chitter calls with him. The call is so soft that it can’t be heard, but you can see her body jerking while she is talking to him.

Since Hoot was already awake she started to actively begin hunting. While I had the video running she began to focus on something on the ground to her left. She began to move her head around to zero in on her possible next meal.

She flew from her perch and landed in another tree close by. I watched her awhile to see if she was going to grab a meal before I moved my tripod get get a better view of her. While I was photographing her she was still very interested in something on the ground that was slightly behind her. She moved again before I decided to leave.

The light was fading fast so I packed up my gear and went looking for Benny the Barred Owl. I quickly walked some of his area, but I didn’t find him.  

While walking around in Benny’s area I heard Hoot and Give a Hoot calling back and forth.

Another interesting day in the woods with the owls…

***My description of the different calls that Hoot make are based upon my observations of her and are my interpretations from Karla Bloem’s 2009 paper, “ Great Horned Owl Bubo Virginians vocalizations and associated behaviors.” Karla is the Executive Director with the International Owl Center.***

 “Spectrographically, Great Horned Owl calls were divided into three main categories: hoots, chitters, and squawks. These categories were further subdivided into five types of hoots, four types of chitters, and five types of squawks based on inflection, number of syllables, duration, pitch, volume, and behavioural context. Two types of non-vocal communication were also distinguished: hisses and bill clacking.”  

 I have been photographing and observing Hoot for 1 1/2 years, and has always been very comfortable in my presence.