Description
Two western screech owlets packed into a tree cavity, still in gray down, four enormous yellow eyes pointed straight at the camera. One is leaning on the other. Neither of them has any intention of moving.
The hole matters as much as the birds. Screech owls are cavity nesters that cannot make cavities — they have no ability to excavate, so every family depends on a hole somebody else built: an old woodpecker nest, a limb scar, a rotted knot in a standing dead tree. Which means these two exist because a woodpecker worked this trunk years ago and because nobody cut the tree down afterward. Tidy up every snag in a neighborhood and you remove the housing supply for an entire species. Leave the dead wood standing, or put up a nest box, and owls move in.
They will leave this hole before they can properly fly. Young owls go through a stage called branching — clambering out onto nearby limbs with feet and beak, flapping, falling, climbing back up, for days before real flight arrives. An owlet on the ground in early summer is usually not abandoned. It is in the middle of its apprenticeship, with a parent watching from somewhere close by.
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. It makes a particularly good print for a child’s room.
What you’ll receive: a high-resolution JPEG, approximately 4192 × 2368 pixels in a wide crop — sharp enough to print at full photo quality up to about 14 × 8 inches at 300 DPI, and considerably larger for wall display. 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.