We found two large recently fledged Great Horned Owls near the Upper Meadow parking lot. This bird (above) was the noisy one, constantly calling with a loud raspy voice.
Perched nearby was this plump adult female. Females average much larger than males. Note the put-out expression often seen in mothers of teen-aged children.
This was one of two recently fledged juveniles. It liked to stretch its neck, wave its head back and forth and seemingly make comical faces. The young have two generations of down feathers followed by juvenile contour feathers which are soft and loose and somewhat similar to down in texture imparting a fluffy appearance.
I returned 9 July to find this adult which I judged to be the male.
Great Horned Owls exhibit a great deal of geographic variation with numerous named subspecies. This is B. v. saturatus which is resident along coast from se. Alaska to n. California. It is dark grayish, heavily barred, tinged dull tawny; feet primarily dusky. This site is near the southern limit of its range.
Digiscoped with Panasonic DMC-LZ5 | Nikon FieldScope 3 | 30X WA | hand-held (no adapter)