Cool, that owl likely thought it had a small dog or cat lined up for dinner. Fox was lucky, as the owl might have killed it had it managed to hit it before being detected.
The fox was smart in not attempting to get it on the ground. A facefull of talons would likely not be pleasant.
Back when I had two rat terriers, one 8lb and one 15lb, GHO’s would sometimes follow us when I took them for walks at night, even had one hovering over my head.
I also had one land right next to the 15lb dog exactly like that owl in the video when the dog was about 25 yards from me, and then it followed us from tree to tree. One time the 35lb heeler mutt in my avatar saved the 8lb terrier by rushing an owl swooping in low. Another time when the little dog was right behind me an owl swooped so close from behind I felt the breeze as it swept low over my head.
Typically this would happen most in late summer when that year’s crop of young owls were kicked out by their parents. Likely these owls were desperately hungry.
I think that owl could have easily hit the fox but pulled out last minute on account of its size, same thing as with the one that landed next to my dog.
When we first moved here and noticed golden eagles in the area, we became a bit concerned for our littlest whippet at the time, our 21-23lb female.
Then, we got Dandee as an 8 week old pup, in February, which is when we've mostly seen the eagles around. Likely down here out of the high mountains for the winter.
Had a hawk try to pickup a turkey decoy once. It was quite a show. It circled like a tornado down about 7 times testing it. Finally on the last swoop it tried to pick it up by the head, could hear its talons on it. Then 30 minutes later I had a bobcat come into it. That decoy had a bad day.