[mou] Great Gray Owl movement

[Dennis/Barbara Martin]

Sorry to not post this before but thought it would still be appropriate.
When we found the Great Gray Owl near Dudley Saturday morning we decided to
follow it at a long distance for awhile to see how it fed.  Amazingly in the
next 10 minutes it moved nearly three blocks to the area across the street
from the school.  This was about a block south and two blocks west from
where we first saw it.  At this point it seemed to notice some mammal
movement on the ground and stayed there until we left some 15 minutes later.
During that time it seemed to be moving closer to the ground.

This movement was accomplished in short flights to perches that it would
study the area below for awhile and when satisfied that there was not much
there it would move on rather quickly.  A resident walked out of their
garage and into their house during one of these stops and was about 15 yards
horizontally from the owl.  The owl paid no attention to the person and it
appeared that the resident never saw this huge bird right next to them about
15 feet off the ground.  Absolutely amazing!!

At the last location across from the school a person walked a small dog up
the alley about 30 feet from the owl.  The owl glanced at them for a second
and then went back to studing the ground.  Shortly thereafter a person was
filming the owl with a video camera from the alley and the owl paid no
attention.

We suspect that this bird has a much larger terrritory than where it has
been found so far.  It appears to us that it comes back to this area as it
has had success finding food (confirmed by earlier posts by others) but
continues to move rather on quickly until it finds food.  Presumeably it
goes to varied roosts after it finds food and is not seen again until it
needs to feed again.  Continually watching for it in nearby areas when it is
not found in the original area may be very revealing as to the size of the
territory.

Dennis and Barbara Martin
dbmartin@skypoint.com