Fledgling fluffball

This is one of the three Great Horned Owlets from the nest that is south of the Bow Valley Ranch in Fish Creek Park. Taken on May 16th, when two of the owlets had fledged and were in this tree, along with Mom, the other side of the path from the nesting tree. SInce then, of course, the youngest owlet has also fledged. Despite the way this looks in my photo, these owls were really high up in the tree. Amazing what full zoom and cropping can achieve, though the image is still horribly grainy. I was surprised that day to see Mom with half a large fish in her beak! I never knew that Great Horned Owls ate fish. but apparently, fish can be part of their diet. It's 6:15 a.m., so I have to dash and get ready to go out.

Today, the second day of the annual May Species Count, takes part outside the city. The group I go with covers the Priddis area, SW of the city. I am so thankful that this is mainly a day of driving - well, being driven - as we walked for six hours in Fish Creek Park yesterday and I was exhausted : ) Wish I was a "morning" person instead of a "night owl"!!!

I think this is perhaps the last batch of photos I can download to my computer, before doing some backing up to external hard drive and deleting. I keep saying how I must get down to doing this, but I keep running out of time.

Later: the final result for the Count in just our area (2 cars carrying a total of 7 people including myself) was 65 species of bird, plus 1 Coyote, 2 Red Squirrels, 1 Muskrat and 3 White-tailed Deer. A pretty good day : )