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Weather Station Hardware => Weather Station Pictures => Topic started by: piconut on January 10, 2018, 01:58:54 PM
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Last night I went out to my driveway to witness one of the iridium satellite flares and noticed an extremely large bird silently flying over my head and landing on my roof. It was so dark out (no moon) that I could only vaguely see that it appeared to have landed on my mast which holds an array of weather cameras, UV and solar sensors, and the vane anemometer. I grabbed my binoculars and could see a dark large shape sitting on top of the mast. Then I went to grab my DSLR and grabbed this photo using a 3 second shutter speed (which is why the image came out much brighter than I could see with the naked eye). What a hoot!
(http://robuck.net/temp/forum_images/anemometer_OWL.jpg) (http://robuck.net/temp/forum_images/anemometer_OWLclose.jpg)
First I was like "wow, cool, a great horned owl". But then I realized that all of that owl's weight was on my wind vane! D'oh!
Oh well, he left later and my vane seems to be working fine.
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That's a really vane bird... in 'is cups there gauging the 'owling wind, using the Cam's IR for night roaming rodents???... try display offset about a hoot and a holler...
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Holy crapie ola! :lol:!.....................
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Great picture! Those are amazing animals. We've had one around our VT house in the last few months. Really neat to watch if you get the chance. Last time it was out, it was during the morning and it was getting harassed by a bunch of Blue Jays.
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For as large as they are, and the weight of their prey that they can carry, owls are surprisingly light.
I was privileged to have one sit on my hand (heavy leather gloves) at a recovery center. This one allowed you to touch it's back and feathers and they have a good inch of fluff over their bodies, too. Not at all like the domestic chickens and turkeys that farmers raise.
I'd not worry about the wind vane. And indeed they are silent flyers.
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For as large as they are, and the weight of their prey that they can carry, owls are surprisingly light.
That's what I was hoping, that they're large and fluffy, but not that heavy!
I like the look of the owl's dilated eye which is also an indicator of how dark it actually was, even though the overexposed image makes it look somewhat light outside. There is also a roof skylight that lights the owl and cameras from the lower right.
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Great pics. I have an owl that comes a couple times a year and sits on the top on my Amateur Radio tower (80'). Neat listening to it hoot. I think there is a pair, one of the tower
and the other in a live oak tree bordering the alley in back. I like owls.
-tim
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That looks like a Great Horned Owl. They are very elusive and seldom
spotted seen. It looks like he has a mouse in his/her mouth. Owls eat a tremendous amount of rodents and other small animals.
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Very cool picture. Unfortunately since your vane is the highest perch it will always be attractive to birds of prey. You could mount another arm which is higher and away from your vane to give them a better higher perch and make sure it is in optimum view for photo ops! We have Owls and Hawks in my hood that often hit high landmarks for browsing for dinner and breakfast.
Brian