From Dane D Ward

Female Eastern Screech Owl being woken up from sleeping by an early morning Male Northern Cardinal that was making a lot of noise.

You can see the mad look on her face even from a distance. "SOME OF US ARE TRYING TO SLEEP HERE?"

My yard
Dunnellon, Florida

Related:

Female Eastern screech owl (Megascops asio) glaring down at me

I was doing some native wildflower landscaping under the tree she was nesting in and apparently making too much noise. I heard her moving around inside the nest box and looked up to the most evil glare I ever did see.

A quick cell shot and I did my groundskeeping somewhere else for a little while.

Same owl and photographer

What a stinkeye. 😂

I love cardinals! They work so hard to attract a lady! Their bright red plumage is one of nature’s biggest bullseyes and they’re extremely bold at defending their territory, even from much larger species. Yet I never see them getting picked off by predators. They dart around with so much energy it’s ridiculous!

Maybe it also considers a cardinal midnight snack. :)

I get sad at the ones that hurt themselves attacking inanimate objects. You're not going to win against a car mirror, little man!

I have a pair in my yard. The female is the most gorgeous female cardinal I've ever seen. She has the most beautiful dark red streaks mixed in her plumage. The male is the wimp of the pair. She is totally the more assertive of the two when I toss out nuts and other birds and squirrels come. Half the time Mr Cardinal is scared of the nuts themselves when I launch them out there, but the Mrs will often come and partake even if a few others are around.

The amount of emotion we can find in these guys considering how little actual facial articulation they have is so much fun.

He's a bit too large to be made a meal of, but I know the GHO will sneak attack eagles in their sleep despite the eagle being many times larger. I wonder if little owls participate in that type of behavior as well... While he may not get muched on, getting a flying dropkick to the head while asleep still would not be pleasant.

This is probably the favorite gif I've made here. GHO getting back at his Bald Eagle nemesis

Nature's version of them doing roadwork right outside your bedroom 😄

That’s amazing! I once had a female goldfinch come and land on my Christmas light string (I’m lazy and leave the lights up all year round, though I only turn them on during the winter).

She would keep perching on the string and tapping at her own reflection in the window, like she was trying to show her reflection who’s boss! So cute to see such assertiveness from such a tiny bird!

I do admire all these animals. In their world, they know no one else is going to help them out, so every encounter has gotta be "I'm going to win this, or die trying!" energy. I'm a big wimp compared to pretty much any wild animal of any size. 😅

I guess you could say that bird is committing a...
(•_•) ( •_•)>⌐□-□ (⌐□_□)
...cardinal sin.

YEAAAAAAAAH

😆

He's a bit too large to be made a meal of

Ok, so he knows that. :)

getting a flying dropkick to the head while asleep still would not be pleasant.

Yes, indeed.

Birds don't seem to actually fight physically very often from what I've seen and read about. From the smallest to largest, they all seem to have some understanding of how fragile they all are, and they more so poke and taunt each other like little kids until one gets so annoyed and storms off. 😄

It pretty much only seems to be during nesting times where there are babies to protect that things come to actual violence, but that's pretty understandable. Who doesn't want to keep their precious little ones safe?