I am in love with a Great Gray Owl :)

I went out this morning with my best friend Betsy, and her daughter Lydia to see the owl.  Apparently seeing an owl in the wild is on Betsy's bucket list.....CHECK!  I picked them up at 7:00 am and by 8:10 am we had our first sighting of the Great Gray!  We spent three hours following, watching and photographing the owl before leaving the owl (our bladders couldn't hold out any longer....Tim Horton's and birding are not the best match!)  The best thing today....the owl flew directly at and over us....we could have literally touched him!  Seeing him eat a mouse was pretty cool too :)  We then drove around the onion fields hoping to check Snowy Owls off of Betsy's bucket list, but all we saw were shopping bags and white cats.  By the way, I have no idea if the owl is male or female...I am using "him" in a generic sense.  Enjoy these pictures....I never tire of looking at this handsome guy :)

Handsome!!

From here, he flew right at and over us!  Amazing and dead silent!

I love that you can see his feet :)

That blurry bit in his mouth is a mouse!

If you look close, you can see a foot on either side of the beak and the mouses' tail!

Great Gray Owl!!!

I first heard about a Great Gray Owl being in the area here.  A full week later (today, December 30, 2011), I finally got a chance to try to see him for myself and was ecstatic to find he was still there!  These aren't the greatest pictures I have seen of this owl, but they are my pictures, and I couldn't be happier!  This is the first owl I have seen in the wild!  A lifer for me :) 



My first picture of the Great Gray :)





Isn't he beautiful?




Not sure if he caught anything...




Flew to a tree a little way off...




Taking off toward the woods at the back of the field..




Not the clearest picture, but love his wings!

 Once he went into the woods, I waited around for a bit, hoping he would come back, but he didn't...at least not yet!  He totally made my day :)