It's springtime in our pine hammock and the owls are turning up the jam. Every dusk a great horned owl (one of at least two) sets up for hooting in a tall dead pine, about 30 yards behind our deck. One owl soon becomes two as another perches about 70 yards out. They look like they have cat's ears. This morning about 6:00 I was retrieving the local mullet wrapper when I heard a hoot. He (?) was perched on the neighbors roof gable. I wonder if he woke them up.

Owls are just about my favorite critter. We have several barred owls around. In the evenings they’ll start hooting back and forth to each other. I love sitting on the deck and listening to them.

We used to have a couple of them around here, and they would serenade us at night.

Have not heard, or seen, them in quite a while.

Kind of miss them. Along with the hummers.

We had one two falls ago. Then, next year: Two. Last year: None.

We never saw them, but we'd hear them.

quote:

Originally posted by Muddflap:
Owls are just about my favorite critter. We have several barred owls around. In the evenings they’ll start hooting back and forth to each other. I love sitting on the deck and listening to them.

We get Barred Owls here on occasion as well. We had one a couple of years ago that showed up at the same time every evening on the same lower branch of a fir tree in our backyard for most of the summer. Really cool watching them hunt.

Jim

Here in the Gulf coast of Florida we have the little burrowing owls! Really cool little guys. I have one that feeds under the street light across the street and spends a lot of time at nite sitting on my mail box..

I have one to four barred owls that hoot it up in my oak trees. 'Who who who, who cooks for you'.

You just never know where you might see one.

I snapped this photo while parked in back of my wife's restaurant waiting to pick her up last winter.

I saw one early one morning in our driveway. He was trying to get to a sprinkler puddle for a drink by walking. What a sight! The birds' massive claws loop 180, so he has to walk on the back of his claws. On concrete. Looked like a barefoot girl trying to walk on hot gravel!

We had 1 great horn owl. That was a few years ago. I mist the sound.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
You just never know where you might see one.

I snapped this photo while parked in back of my wife's restaurant waiting to pick her up last winter.

All jessed up and nowhere to go...

That's a Eurasian Eagle Owl.

That owl is fairly well known in the Park City area. The owner has him out every so often for pictures with the passer-bys and whatnot.

If i remember correctly, it is either this particular bird or his sibling or both that have been in quite a few movies including Harry Potter.

Something I thought was cool was the handler apparently lets the bird fly away and hunt at night, but--as Arnold said in Total Recall to Sharon Stone--he's "always back in the morning."

In a previous house I had a back deck that extended from a hillside. There was a GHO who hung out in the neighborho0d. Sometimes, in the dark, I would feel him sweep overhead, didn't exactly see or hear him, just felt his presence.

We'll be moving to a new house soon, there are eucalyptus trees in the gully behind the house. I would love to put up an owl box but I don't know how to get it up, like 40 feet, in the tree. Any ideas?

I saw one near my house a few weeks ago. It was too dark to see what kind, but by size either a great horned or barred owl.

An owl bit the heads off of three of my baby geese while they were in a 6' x 8' chain link fenced cage. Another event was my beautiful Llewellyn Setter pup, 8 weeks old, I had outside doing her business right after a snow storm. I was right with her when a huge owl swooped right by my head and tried to grab her up. Lucky I was so close and was able to save her. Other than that I enjoy the sound of the owls at night.

Sorry, could not resist posting my 2010 Hooters Calendar from one of my previous posts. The title disappointed a lot of members.

Owls ate all my baby Cottontails. The food chain, airborne style.