Baby owl at Fort Desoto

Baby great horned owl.


Big baby yellow eyes!


Baby in the nest with Mom sitting above hiding behind the pine needles.

Mom sitting close by.

The above baby is probably one of the most photographed babies in the Tampa Bay area. The great horned owl baby is sitting on a tiny nest near the North Beach at Fort Desoto Park. Just look for the tree with all of the photographers standing underneath looking up. The baby was very animated and closely watching a handful of white ibis feeding on the ground underneath the nest. He's almost the size of the parent so he'll be flying soon. I don't know if I'll make it back down to the park again before he is gone.

Baby owl in Clearwater

Baby owl sitting up.

The baby's giving me that "What do you want?" look.

Parent sitting close by.

The owl blinking. It's funny to see their eyelids.

Now that the time has changed, I was able to get out after work and stop by one of my favorite parks close by work. I saw the big owl sitting high up in the tree from pretty far away. I walked by the old nest from last year and wasn't sure what I'd find. Yea, there was a baby owl sitting in it looking right at me. It's only a couple of weeks old. I'm going to try and get there every week to track it's progress growing up. They grow up fast and then leave for up north before the summer.

My first owl sighting

Baby great horned owl peeking out from the nest.

Same baby owl about a month later sitting on a branch.

One of the parents of above baby owl.

Screech owl in Christina's backyard. (Picture taken by Christina Button).

I recently watched a great movie on the Disney channel called Hoot. It's about a boy who moves to south Florida and meets new friends and tries to save owls from losing their homes to development. It made me think of the first time I saw an owl out in the wild. It was this past spring at a small park not far from work. I was walking around taking pictures and someone stopped me and said "Have you seen the baby owl?". They showed me where it was and I was hooked. The parents were close by in another tree. I went back to that park every other week during the spring and got pictures of the baby growing up. My friend Christina was telling me she gets screech owls in her backyard. She sent me the above picture to show how cute they are. I'm going back to that park often this spring hoping to see a new baby.