Great Gray

Great Gray Earl Plato
There it was staring me in the face! Have you seen the recent National Geographic Magazine? There it is! The Great Gray. Inside is a very informative article on this giant owl that stands almost a metre high and with a two metre wingspan. It’s Ontario’s largest owl. No kidding - Maggie Chambers of Fort Erie sent me last week via e-mail a close up of this rare raptor in Southern Ontario. She wrote, “This great gray owl visits my sister’s back yard off of Highway #10 near Bradford regularly.” Friend naturalist, Ernie Giles, sent me a close up of a Great Gray sitting on a post near his Lake of Bays homestead. I know what this giant raptor looks like. I am on the Birders’ Hotline and I recall a few years ago the sighting of a Great Gray south of Buffalo. Brother Ed, and I went with American cousin Willie to the last sighting of the bird, We walked up and down several rolling hill trails in the rural Western New York lands, No luck. Some day I hope to see one alive. What do we know about the Great Gray? You can see the great photos and read the piece in the February, 2005 National Geographic. Here is some of what I remembered about the bird. It is not a raptor that has the muscular strength of our Great Horned Owl. Strip this guy clean of his feathers and he is a “skinny-minny.” His impressive layers of feathers is a cover-up. His sharp peak and impressive talons are only good for preying on field voles. He doesn’t have the strength to capture anything bigger. A field vole is like our fat meadow mice. The Great Gray mainly feeds at night but the Geographic says they hunt in daylight too. That would be a magnificent sight to see. When there is an major epidemic among our Northern Ontario voles the Great Gray must come to the south to survive. I believe that is why Maggie’s sister is seeing a Great Gray now. Hoo-hoo-hoo knows when we might see one.