Northern Pygmy-Owl with vole
Northern Pygmy-Owl with head turned showing fake “eyes” on back of head.
A fellow birder and I were walking in the Santa Cruz Mountains of Central California. We had froze in a field surrounded by scrubby willow to get a view of a Wilson’s Warbler. Out of nowhere, this bird lands next to us, probably within about 6 feet. It could barely fly. I estimated that the vole was about 2/3 of the owl’s weight. It stared at us while we took photos. We backed off and it dropped the vole. We kept going in hopes that it retrieved its prey.