Great gray owl

My old friend Pete, organic farmer in southern Finland, called me one evening last February. He told me he saw an enormous big bird while he was loading logs on a trailer in a forest clearing. "It may be a tawny owl", he supposed.

It took me about a half an hour until I got there. For a moment I observed the landscape in front of me.

And there it was sitting on top of dead pine tree.

When I saw the bird I hardly believed my eyes.

It wasn't a tawny owl. It was great gray owl, one of the biggest owls  in Finland.

I have never before seen this big owl for this big creature mainly lives in northern Finland.

Seeing it in southern Finland is extremely rare.