Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge extends over the marshy remains of a large lake that existed in Northern New Jersey some 15,000 years ago. I don’t go there often, and today’s trip was the first in five years.
Great Swamp has wooden walkways so that you don’t have to muddy your shoes, and blinds to observe and photograph birds. However, the Barred Owl below was standing on a tree branch by one of the walkways, and it barely budged even though several people were pointing their scopes, smartphones, or cameras at it.
The owl has beautiful black eyes needed to hunt at night, but this owl was probably taking a daytime nap.
Eastern Phoebes is a songbird living in the East of North America, from Canada to Mexico. It is quite common and not on the endangered list. I saw this one from a blind at Great Swamp NWR.
Great shots of the Barred Owl! maybe it had been hunting all night and just wanted to nap on that branch 🙂
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You are right! It looked tired.
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I just love owls!!!!! These photographs are awesome!
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Thank you Jessica!
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Love the owl captures, Hien. So very Lovely!
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Thank you Amy!
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That owl is saying “I will not open my eyes for your camera, I will not open my eyes!” I adore owls! Happy week wishes sweetie
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Ha, ha! They have such large and brilliant eyes! I will have to find them later in the day or at dusk perhaps. Thank you for commenting!
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I will keep an eye out for your owl pics! I have several owl decor items as I love them so much
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My wife just loves owls – I’ll have to show her your beautiful photos as soon as she wakes up!
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I hope she likes them, Dries. This was my first photos of any kind of owl. I almost missed seeing this one until I saw several people pointing their scopes and cameras at it.
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Sounds like a great place. Beautiful photos.
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Thank you Katelon!
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Great owl photos.
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Thanks Jim! A first owl photo for me. 🙂
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Nice capture. Cheers
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Thank you Chris!
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The owl was probably tired from feeding its young and needed the nap.
A place with blinds and a raised walkway sounds good, but I’ll bet that it gets crowded there.
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There were three blinds that I could see, so the were not crowded, maybe 3 or 4 at most people. Then again, I was there early in the morning, and there was no crowd at all. Thank you for commenting Jerry.
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