Hey everybody. This is Ellen Weatherford. I'm here with just the zoo of us. And this week, I have a friend here. This is Ashley Bray. Say hi, Ashley. Hey. How are you doing today? I'm so good. So excited to be here. I'm so excited to have you here because we've been buddies for a little while, so it's exciting to get to actually, like, virtually meet you. So why don't you introduce

yourself a little bit for our friends who are listening? Yeah, so once again, I'm Ashley Bray. I host

the Get Out Alive podcast, which would not happen without this podcast in Ellen's direction. So thank you.

Yeah, so in general, I'm a wildlife specialist who,

if people are having issues with nuisance animals, which really could mean anything, like a bird

cooing outside your window could be called a nuisance. When people have issues with those,

they'll kind of give us a call and I give direction to people on how to have bears stop eating their chickens. Or, for example, last week some woman was like, hey, I have five owls outside of my house. What do I do with them? Which, nothing, if you're wondering, there's nothing to do. Just let them be. Yeah, well, she had like a chihuahua and she was worried that they were going to eat her chihuahua, which I guess is pretty valid.

Just, oh, get one of those little spiky vests for the dog. That's what I said. And she was like, yeah, I've looked into it, but I think it would make him feel sad about himself. I was like, oh. She's like, who cares? It's better than being dead. But, anyways, beyond that, I used to work at the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center in Holderness, New Hampshire, which is like, they're AZA-accredited, and they're essentially like a little zoo, but the trail that you walk is basically just like a dirt path through the woods. So it's super cool because as you're just taking a walk in the woods, you can see all the animals that live in New Hampshire, which is where I am. They also have mountain lions, which don't live here anymore, but you can learn all about how they don't live here anymore and why, which is a bummer. Yeah, so there at Squam Lakes is really where I got firsthand experience with the animal we're talking about today, which is super exciting.

Yeah, today we're talking about the Great Horned Owl, which is really, really cool because I didn't know this until fairly recently, but we even have them down here in Florida. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's really cool. So why don't you introduce us a little bit to the Great Horned Owl? Let's get into it. So, you know, when you asked me to do this, I was like, oh, man, picking an animal is the hardest thing, especially if you are a biologist because, like, there's so many cool things. But I was trying to think of something I've worked with that also was like a local species that I've seen before. I was trying to think, okay, I like predators. I like birds. And Great Horned Owls are like the predatory bird. They're called the tiger in the sky by some people because they're just so feisty. They really, like there's no other predatory bird that compares in my mind to Great Horned owls. They're just the coolest. If y'all are looking for band names, tigers in the sky, that's it right there. That is it. Yeah. And give us credit, please.

Shout on our podcasts. So if you've never seen one, they are, well, this also depends on where

you're seeing them, because as you were saying, they do live in Florida, they can go all the way

down to the southern tip of South America and all the way up to subarctic Canada. So they have a super wide range.

Like I said, their coloration depends on their geographical location. So if they're closer to the

Pacific Northwest, they tend to be darker and like more sooty colored. And then southwestern

individuals tend to be kind of paler. I worked with this

owl, this great horned owl that came from Kansas, and he was like mostly red, like a reddish

light brown. And then individuals in sub-Arctic Canada can be almost white. So there's a huge

variation in their colors. Yeah. That's so interesting that they kind of like adapt to where they live

in the country. Yeah, which I definitely wrote that they kind of like adapt to where they live in the country.

Yeah, which I definitely wrote down for one of these categories because super cool adaptation. Yeah. So before we get into the ratings, I did want to ask. So it's called the Great Horned Owl because of these like sort of tufty things it has on its head, right? What are those? Are those ears? Great question. So I know it's hard too because there's other species that also have those ear tufts.

So. things it has on its head, right? What are those? Are those ears? Great question. So I know it's hard, too,

because there's other species that also have those ear tufts. So for some reason, I mean, they do deserve the term great horned owl because they are great. But yeah, so those ear tuffs are purely for

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