Description
An adult western screech owl in the mouth of a tree cavity late in the day, eyes at half mast, ear tufts flattened, still mostly asleep. He is not ignoring you — he is simply not on duty yet. Give him another hour.
This is exactly the right time to find one. Screech owls are crepuscular: they do their hunting in the low light around dusk and dawn rather than the dead middle of the night. So the last hour of daylight is when a bird that has been invisible all day begins to stir at the entrance of its hole, blinking, rousing its feathers, waiting for the light to drop. Sit near a likely cavity in the evening and you may watch one wake up.
Two things about him are commonly misunderstood. Those tufts on his head are not ears — the actual ear openings are hidden at the edges of the facial disc. The tufts are feathers, used to break up the round outline of the head against bark and to signal mood; raised when alert, flattened like this when relaxed. And the name is a misnomer too: a western screech owl does not screech. Its call is a soft accelerating series of hoots that birders describe as a bouncing ball coming to rest. The blood-curdling screech everyone associates with owls belongs to the barn owl.
This is a high-resolution digital download of the photograph, made in Portland, Oregon — yours to print for your home or office, set as a wallpaper, or simply keep.
What you’ll receive: a high-resolution JPEG, approximately 2918 × 1648 pixels — sharp enough to print at full photo quality up to about 9.5 × 5.5 inches at 300 DPI, and larger at normal wall viewing distances. Please note this is a somewhat smaller file than most titles in the collection; it is excellent on screen and for desk-size prints. Delivered as an instant download the moment your order is complete.
License: Personal use only. Print it for your own home, use it as a wallpaper or screen background, enjoy it yourself. Not licensed for commercial use, resale, redistribution, or AI training. © Jonathan Swanson / JonSwan Productions. All rights reserved.