{"id":2486,"date":"2017-02-21T22:11:19","date_gmt":"2017-02-22T05:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ocbirds.com\/?p=2486"},"modified":"2024-07-11T09:28:14","modified_gmt":"2024-07-11T16:28:14","slug":"barn-owl-daytime-sighting-at-riley-wilderness-park-coto-de-caza-february-21-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbirds.com\/?p=2486","title":{"rendered":"Barn Owl – daytime sighting at Riley Wilderness Park – Coto De Caza February 21"},"content":{"rendered":"

The winter gloom of clouds, rain and cooler weather here in southern California always seems to strike a nerve that owls may be more prevalent as mice and other vermin surface in drenched, muddy or flooded areas.\u00a0 The recent re-openings of many of the OC Parks trails allowed personal time to investigate and pursue this intuition one step further.\u00a0 Today this internal hunch proved to be fruitful as this afternoon I opted to travel along the Wagon Wheel Canyon Trail at Riley Wilderness Park just outside Coto De Caza in Orange County, California.\u00a0 Just past 3:30 pm I noted a small batch of crows swooping in and out of the oak trees on the eastern side of the trail just past the ranger’s trailer.\u00a0 As I walked closer to observe a few sparrows and the aforementioned commotion, I noted the backside of an unfamiliar raptor hopping several branches within the oaks and take cover.\u00a0 As I inched closer, a sudden crunch of the scrub brush caused the raptor to swivel its head as they are unable to move their eyes.\u00a0 Once it’s remarkable facial disc was clearly visible, there was no mistaking this was clearly a Barn Owl.\u00a0 I don’t recall seeing one of these during daylight hours except in a man made owl box asleep at O’Neill Regional Park and also at the Aliso Woods and Canyon Trail.\u00a0 The orange hues and brown tones of this owl’s plumage were simply remarkable.\u00a0 It was preoccupied with the small crow bombing thus allowing for a few photographs while standing at the edge of a ravine.\u00a0 You’ll note in the images below, both front and side views were captured.\u00a0 I try and be mindful when observing or capturing images of these raptors in such situations – this is mother nature engaged and not to outstay your welcome.\u00a0 Please enjoy the photos below of this seldom seen raptor. (images taken with a Canon 400mm lens and a Canon 7D cropped sensor which equates to 640mm).<\/p>\n

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Photo taken at Riley Wilderness Park in Coto De Caza, CA February 21, 2017<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Barn Owl – Tyto alba \u00a9Anthony Gliozzo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Photo taken at Riley Wilderness Park in Coto De Caza, CA February 21, 2017<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Barn Owl – Tyto alba \u00a9Anthony Gliozzo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Photo taken at Riley Wilderness Park in Coto De Caza, CA February 21, 2017<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Barn Owl – Tyto alba \u00a9Anthony Gliozzo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Photo taken at Riley Wilderness Park in Coto De Caza, CA February 21, 2017<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Barn Owl – Tyto alba \u00a9Anthony Gliozzo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The winter gloom of clouds, rain and cooler weather here in southern California always seems to strike a nerve that owls may be more prevalent as mice and other vermin surface in drenched, muddy or flooded areas.\u00a0 The recent re-openings … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oc-birding-locales","category-owls"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Rhss-E6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2486"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/ocbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2707,"href":"https:\/\/ocbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2486\/revisions\/2707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}