Owl Spotted Swimming In Lake Michigan, Butterfly Style [Video]

Have you ever seen an owl swimming? No? Then you are in luck, since a photographer captured the moment in which a Great Horned Owl decided that there was nothing better than to try out some butterfly-style swimming in the frigid waters.

Even though this winter hasn’t been as harsh as that of 2013, Lake Michigan this time of the year is not warm at all, but this owl didn’t seem to mind. So what was the beautiful bird doing in the water?

According to the Chicago area photographer who captured the cool clip and is also a birder, the Great Horned Owl was apparently forced down into Lake Michigan by two Peregrine Falcons, Fox 6 Now reports. Steve Spitzer was at Loyola Park Beach located in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood when he saw something in the lake.

Spitzer met another birder who said it was an owl, and he took out his camera to capture the unusual footage. In the short video, we can see how the owl gracefully starts swimming in what can be compared to butterfly style, a la Michael Phelps in the Olympics.

While the amazing video clearly shows the owl swimming in Lake Michigan, it doesn’t capture the reported attack by the Peregrine Falcons. Spitzer and other birders banded together to try to protect the owl from the Peregrine attack.

“I’m a birder at heart,” the photographer told WGN TV, adding that bird rescue was called to the scene, but the owl didn’t need the help and flew away on its own, but not before the footage and several photos were taken.

The Great Horned Owl seen swimming in Lake Michigan is by some estimates the largest “eared owl” in the Americas. Among standard measurements, the wing chord length measures between 11.7 inches and 15.7 inches, according to Size Dimorphism and Food Habits of North American Owls.

Its natural-colored plumage allows it to conduct predatory missions without easily being detected. Even though the Great Horned Owl is mostly sedentary during the day, in this case, it seems to have been scared off its home by the Peregrines, but did a great job escaping them and taking a leisurely swim in Lake Michigan.

[Image via Ulavis/Wikipedia]