The Monday "Owl" Photos!

Today, Monday afternoon around 1:30, my next door neighbor called my office to report a new form of wildlife in the neighborhood. You must understand that although I live right in the village, we frequently have 20 or more turkeys, and a half dozen or so deer roaming around on the back lawn. Well, this time the neighbors spotted an Owl. I rushed to my house, got out the camera and went to the neighbors house. Sure enough, across the road and in another neighbors yard was an owl sitting on some kind of metal object in the back yard.

Equipped with a birding book the neighbors were pretty certain that it was a Great Horned Owl. I suggested that a Barred Owl would be more likely, but couldn't tell myself by looking at it with binoculars. So I went across the road to another neighbors driveway and got as close as I dared without spooking this amazing find.
It didn't appear frightened of my presence so I snap a couple of photos and retreated back to the house. Inside I mentioned that I thought I got a good shot as it was looking right at me.


After a little more discussion about what kind of owl it was, how long it had been there, and how still it was sitting, I decided to see if I could get even closer.
This time I went from a different angle. I was headed down the driveway of the house across the street when I spotted the homeowner. I asked him if he had seen the owl on the lawn of the property next door. He had not, so the two of us walked around the back of the house, past the garage to a spot where I would be sure to get a close up view of the bird. And I did. To my surprise, it was made of plastic! Yup,
that's right, plastic. It has been there for months. I laughed so hysterically that I didn't even bother taking a close up, but I did crop the decoy in my pics so we could get a closer look - here it is:


So the neighbors and I will likely just keep watching the deer and turkeys and not try to hard to spot new wildlife.