Weekend Diversion: Night Of The Ponies
Pedway, First Store Open At Block 37
Around Town
Around Town
Red-Light Cameras Not So Special?
Friend-of-the-site Micah spotted an unusual feathered friend over the weekend and snapped this shot. Apparently that's a Great Horned Owl, chillaxing on the 1400 block of South State Street. H00t!
Turns out there are eight species of owls that live around here. Hell, our short-lived Continental League Football team was the Chicago Owls. (What's got two thumbs and loves that logo? Thiiis site. > > we're pointing to the site with our thumbs < < ) The Owls went 6-6 in 1968 and 5-7 in 1969. [Image from Logoserver]
Anyway, owls have been surprising Chicago residents for more than a hundred years....
Back in 1894, for example, there was an utterly delightful story in the Tribune that's been saved for posterity in the NYT archives.
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"chillaxing"
Nice!
Actually, that nice wintery owl photo is a Long-eared Owl. Long-eared Owls do look a LOT like Great Horned Owls, but Long-ears are much smaller (nearly impossible to tell in a photo), have a thinner body (but this guy looks poofed up due to the cold), and a more "vertical" face (I always say Long-ears look more like Bert and Great Horneds have a wider face like Ernie.) The ear tufts on a Long-eared Owl also attach more toward the middle of the top of the head, and they have less of a "forehead" than Great Horneds. Pretty subtle differences, but I'm the Director of the Houston Nature Center in MN and have had a permanently injured Great Horned Owl for nine years, so it comes a little easier to me.
Karla Kinstler
Houston, MN
www.owlstuff.com
Welcome to Chicagoist, Karla. It's nice to have a real expert talk about these birds. I'm a birder of average skills, and I was fooled, too. I haven't seen many Long-eareds either, so there would be no way for me to have these subtle differences down. I appreciate the primer. I'll use it on my next owling trip.