One of the most interesting birds I have had the opportunity to photograph this year has been the northern pygmy owl. It is a bird of western North America, found in mountainous and foothill areas from Central America to northern British Columbia. As owl locations are protected, it proved a challenge to find one, but I finally lucked out on a forest access road in the Fraser Valley about an hour drive from our home. Due to its intense eyes and small size, many find the pygmy owl “cute”, but it is a fierce predator and will take on rodents and other birds up to three times larger than itself. (It is actually not much larger than a song sparrow in length (15-17 cm.) and when a friend described to look for, he said look for a baseball at the end of a tree branch). Sure enough, that is what I found! The pygmy owl, unlike most North American owls, is mostly a day time hunter, and sticks pretty well to one specific area and thus once located, can generally be found on subsequent visits. I believe the following pictures taken over several weeks are all of the same bird, or at most, are of two different birds. On one occasion when photographing one, I believe I her the characteristic “toot” of a second nearby, although I could not locate the second one.
