I thought you all would appreciate this. I don't usually post anything here (just troll for cute animals), but I got an email from my aunt this morning that I found particularly interesting.

My uncle is something of a cowboy/farmer type in rural Illinois and likes to raise and keep certain types of animals. In the past he's raised chickens, quail, cows, and even horses. He's in his 60s now, so he pretty much only does the easy stuff now. He's been raising pheasant lately. If you live in this area, you know the pheasant population has been devastated in the last 20 years because the suburbs just keep growing and growing.

Anyway, he's been raising pheasant on his ranch. The other day, he wakes up at 6-ish am, and heads out to the pen to check on his birds. What he sees is a shocker. Somehow, a young horned owl got into the cage and is interacting with the pheasants. His wife gets out the digital camera and snaps some pics.

The horned owl is amazing to look at. I'll post all the pictures here. My uncle says if you've never seen one in person before, you're really missing out. So after the pics, he lets it go free into the wilderness again.

Check out the pictures they sent.