YOU GONNA GET ATTACKED

Quick and dirty.

Damn you, Glitchwerks!

easily solved by cross country ski-tennis

beantowndog: easily solved by cross country ski-tennis

Good luck with that. I know that they only weigh 3-4 pounds (hollow bones), but the last owl I saw had a wingspan of about 5 feet. Not to mention the nasty beak, razor claws, and stealth-flight capabilities.

Owl! My Balls!

peon36: beantowndog: easily solved by cross country ski-tennis

Good luck with that. I know that they only weigh 3-4 pounds (hollow bones), but the last owl I saw had a wingspan of about 5 feet. Not to mention the nasty beak, razor claws, and stealth-flight capabilities.

This ends by hitting himself with the racket...then OWL! MY BALLS!.

This is no joke. While I was mountain biking down a tight stretch of singletrack I must have scared up a ginormous owl. My friends say it looked like it was trying to land on my head but I think it was so large it had nowhere to go but down the trail with me.

/The sound of the wings flapping were amazing. Must have been huge.

Tastes like chicken.

Wear a helmet like this and you won't have to worry about him. He'll only swoop down and smack you once. Then you can have owl kabobs for dinner.

peon36: Good luck with that. I know that they only weigh 3-4 pounds (hollow bones), but the last owl I saw had a wingspan of about 5 feet. Not to mention the nasty beak, razor claws, and stealth-flight capabilities.

And yet the reason this is a news story is that most owls know attacking humans is a losing proposition.

Uh-one.

Uh-tahooo.

Uh-three.

litespeed74: This is no joke. While I was mountain biking down a tight stretch of singletrack I must have scared up a ginormous owl. My friends say it looked like it was trying to land on my head but I think it was so large it had nowhere to go but down the trail with me.

/The sound of the wings flapping were amazing. Must have been huge.

I've heard those flapping 5 foot wings---Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Creepy but cool at the same time.

No pictures of the creepy owl from "The Hedgehog in the Fog"?

Saw it on Youtube a couple of weeks back, absolutely gorgeous storytelling... Same nightmares as the ones twenty years ago nonetheless.

I grew up in upstate NY and we were cautioned away from cc skiing on the local public golf course because a bobcat was chasing anyone who got too close to her lair.

/Wild America
//did not tempt fate with the bobcat

Great horned owls are one of the earliest nesters out there. And they're one of the fiercest birds on the wing, given a motive. They'll kick the crap out of eagles and even goshawks in most territorial disputes.

They're setting up breeding/nesting territories now, and this male is defending one. The female's probably sitting on eggs somewhere. Of course, once the young hatch and fledge, they'll start ending up on the ground, where people will attempt to 'rescue' them. (They can climb up a vertical trunk). People regularly get attacked while picking up these young.

While an eagle would just fly away, a GH owl will take your scalp off. Of course, the newspaper writer didn't even spend the 10 phone minutes to ask an ornithologist about that.

They should probably hire some owl exterminators.

atlas spanked: Great horned owls are one of the earliest nesters out there. And they're one of the fiercest birds on the wing, given a motive. They'll kick the crap out of eagles and even goshawks in most territorial disputes.

They're setting up breeding/nesting territories now, and this male is defending one. The female's probably sitting on eggs somewhere. Of course, once the young hatch and fledge, they'll start ending up on the ground, where people will attempt to 'rescue' them. (They can climb up a vertical trunk). People regularly get attacked while picking up these young.

While an eagle would just fly away, a GH owl will take your scalp off. Of course, the newspaper writer didn't even spend the 10 phone minutes to ask an ornithologist about that.

Did you read more than the first few paragraphs of the article?

FTA: "[Great horned owls are] thought to be the most likely," said Charlie Todd, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. "It's the boldest nocturnal raptor and the one that has the best reputation for the occasionally bizarre."

Great horned owls lay eggs in Maine between the third week in February and early April, he said.

"So we're in that window of time that they would have committed to a nest and may be tending to eggs," Todd said.

A breeding pair of great horned owls likely will work together, with the larger female tending the nest much of the time and the male looking for food, Todd said.

...in this case, the evidence seems to indicate a nearby nest.

Draw some eyes on the back of your hat. The owl won't attack you head-on.

Moar farking Owlz!

thx Mr. Fuzzypaws!