"Lift Off!"
A Northern Hawk Owl takes off with its freshly caught prey, a hapless Tree Sparrow.
I had noticed several Tree Sparrows feeding on grit along a roadside earlier this morning. Around noon I spotted an unidentified bird in the roadside snow but it was acting like it was in distress. As I was starting to try and get a better look with my binoculars, this North Hawk Owl swooped in from the forest, grabbed the sparrow and landed in a tree for about 30 seconds.
I only had a brief time to take a few frames before the Hawk Owl took off with its meal.
I wasn't able to identify the sparrow until I uploaded my images to my computer. I expect that the Hawk Owl had previously attacked the sparrow in the forest but it got away temporarily.
Image created on December 19, 2019 in eastern Ontario, Canada. The left wing was clipped in this frame and I had been shooting in portrait mode because the bird was owl was sitting vertical. Image cropped for composition.
"Lift Off!"
A Northern Hawk Owl takes off with its freshly caught prey, a hapless Tree Sparrow.
I had noticed several Tree Sparrows feeding on grit along a roadside earlier this morning. Around noon I spotted an unidentified bird in the roadside snow but it was acting like it was in distress. As I was starting to try and get a better look with my binoculars, this North Hawk Owl swooped in from the forest, grabbed the sparrow and landed in a tree for about 30 seconds.
I only had a brief time to take a few frames before the Hawk Owl took off with its meal.
I wasn't able to identify the sparrow until I uploaded my images to my computer. I expect that the Hawk Owl had previously attacked the sparrow in the forest but it got away temporarily.
Image created on December 19, 2019 in eastern Ontario, Canada. The left wing was clipped in this frame and I had been shooting in portrait mode because the bird was owl was sitting vertical. Image cropped for composition.