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 [email protected]
