Art by Barry Kent MacKay
An All-Creatures.org
Art and Photo Presentation

(Artwork - 035)
Great Gray Owl
(Strix nebulosa)

The Great Gray Owl is a species of owl that most North American birders would consider to be a great rarity they are anxious to see, but is one of the owls I’ve seen most often. Every number of years we get fairly large numbers of them, in the winter, and they tend to be rather unafraid, and often perch in the open, as I have shown in this vignette painting.

The Great Gray Owl is found around the northern hemisphere, and normally lives in cold, boreal forests, called “taiga”. The plumage is very long, the eyes, beak and feet relatively small as protection against the cold. It is often minus forty degrees (Celsius or Fahrenheit) or more where they are found in winter. They mostly eat lemmings and voles.

The painting was commissioned and was done approximately life size, in acrylics, with a bit of added gouache watercolour, on compressed acid-free hardboard.

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