First Bird of the Year

 

Last year I started out the year with a Cooper's Hawk on the fence and I finished their year at the Sax-Zim Bog with the amazing Great Gray Owl. Nice bookends for 2024. This year, my first first shot turns out to be a Great Horned Owl. I went out looking for short-eared owls, which are lifers for me and are supposed to be hanging around the model airplane field at Naperville Prairie near sunset. No luck on the short-eared (on this trip), but got a nice view of this beautiful Great Horned Owl. So that was fun and I look forward to another lucky year of birding.