Great Grey Owl
Great Grey Owl
Strix nebulosa
Supplier: Biopix
The Great Gray Owl is a very large nocturnal bird of northern (mainly coniferous) forests and wooded bogs as well as some high mountain meadows in western North America. Great Gray Owls are resident across much of boreal Canada and Alaska and in Eurasia from northern Scandinavia, northern Russia, and northern Siberia south to central Russia, northern Mongolia, and northern Manchuria., Amurland, and Sakhalin. where they are most often found near bogs, along forest edges overlooking fields, in mountain meadows, and around cultivated land, airports, and roadsides. The diet of the Great Gray Owl consists mainly of small mammals, especially Microtus voles. These owls can detect prey under snow by sound and can plunge and break through snow crust hard enough to support 80 kg and as deep as 45 cm. (Kaufman 1996; Dunne 2006; Svensson 2009; AOU 1998; Holt et al. 1999 and references therein.) Supplier: Leo Shapiro.