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Backlit against the pastel-colored sky of a January evening, the silhouette atop the fencepost was arresting.

Owl-like, sure, but too large to be a great-horned, round of head and with striking yellow eyes and dappled feathers. 

It was a great gray owl — a powerful and elegant raptor known to roam mountains and forests near the Teton and Absaroka ranges in northern Wyoming. In mid-January, however, two great grays strayed south into Fremont County, with several sightings reported over two weeks. 

Birder Ron Horn of Lander photographed both birds on Jan. 20 near a grassy meadow. Fremont County has received very little snow this winter, creating good conditions for hunting raptors. When he saw the first owl, he said, there was blood on its beak — it had apparently just finished a meal. 

A great gray owl scans fields for prey from a fencepost near Lander on Jan. 20, 2026. (Ron Horn)

Great grays are not unheard of in Fremont County; birders report sightings of individual birds from time to time. A biologist even discovered a nesting female on the Shoshone National Forest in July.  

Colorado State University research scientist Katherine Gura has studied Wyoming great gray owls for a dozen years. During the winter, she told WyoFile, the raptors expand their range significantly, largely in response to snow conditions and prey accessibility. 

“Great Gray Owls hunt small mammals beneath the snow during winter, and we have had a number of rain on snow events [in the Tetons] that have resulted in severe crusts, which make it very difficult for owls to access their prey,” she wrote in an email. “If snow conditions are optimal (not too deep, and without crusts), owls will remain on their breeding ranges year-round.”

Based on her examination of photos and videos of the Fremont County owls, Gura believes they are adults. They probably aren’t mates, however.

“I GPS-tracked ~45 adult Great Gray Owls for my graduate research, including some paired males and females, and they rarely wintered together,” Gura wrote. “So, I would say it is actually unlikely the birds in [Fremont County] are a breeding pair.”

It’s more probable that a mix of good habitat and abundant prey attracted two of the striking gray birds south of their regular haunts.

Katie Klingsporn reports on outdoor recreation, public lands, education and general news for WyoFile. She’s been a journalist and editor covering the American West for 20 years. Her freelance work has...

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  1. We’ve seen great gray owls in the southern Wind River mountains on the upper Big Sandy and the Little Sandy semi regularly over the years. Really neat birds.

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  2. Reply