Well I don't think I've ever seen any owl in the wild. I hear them in the near distance all the time.

But last night we heard 2 just outside my bedroom window. I looked out the window and saw the shadow of one leave a tree and land on the ground. I went outside but was unable to see them.

We did some searching and the hooting seemed to be Great Horned Owls. There were 2 distinct calls being made. They were definitely 2 different owls based on the calls being from different spots and sometimes overlapping.

Anyhow they are loud and call all night. I felt like Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinny. My wife got up early and managed to get a pic of one in our tree. He ran off when she opened the slider but pic seems to confirm a Great Horned Owl. Pretty cool.

I love hawks and owls. We see them frequently on our land, but they always make me stop for a good look.

Nice!

I've told the story here before I think, but I met a GHO up close and personal. As it sitting on the floor of the chicken coop and looking at me from 4 feet away.

BIG bird!

I love owls. I don't see them too often but do hear them occasionally.

Yep. That's a GHO.

I have a pair hooting it up on the property here.

They have one chick fledge a year.

Of course y'all know where they came from!

In the 1970s the St. Paul, MN zoo was nice. One time I was there they had their GHO sitting, tethered, on a two-foot-high perch just a few feet from a sidewalk where I stood, watching. The tether was long enough for him fly between his perch and the ground.

As a kid, my family kept chickens. When they flew upwards two feet (about their limit) their wing beats made a helluva racket. But that GHO was absolutely silent in his two-foot ascent. He was at least as big as a chicken too. I was amazed by that silence.

I sleep outside on a porch here in my town and I here them pretty much every night and sometimes they wake me up later when they are doing their regurgitating of the small critter bones and fur.

But a much better owl story, I have a friend who hunts a lot and a few years back he was turkey hunting dressed in his full camo/gilly suit and being absolutely still... his nose started itching bad and he slowly moved his arm up and let his bare trigger finger slip out of his camoed glove and just as he got ready to scratch something came out of no where and almost took his finger off...big owl....

We have a great horned owls that hoot back and forth across our neighborhood. We see and hear them on our roof quite often. Last summer around dusk we had one that would land in my neighbors front yard around dusk every day. It would hag around for a little while then fly away low between the houses. The wingspan of these birds is crazy wide.

There’s a pair that roost in the trees at the County Courthouse a couple of blocks from my house. They hunt along my street from time to time. There’s lots of unmaintained yards on the block that probably make for good hunting.

We hear them in the woods out back, but we've yet to have seen one.

I'm sure I posted this when it happened, a couple years ago I came out of my shed and this young hawk flew from one fence post to another and scared the shit out of me. I went pretty close taking video of him. He was not bothered by me in the least. Very cool.

I welcome hawks, owls, and snakes. Anything that eats voles, moles and mice.

Walking the dog one evening in a park near our home, Mrs. A. and I were treated to the sight of two hornies flying over in formation, no more than three or four feet over our heads. A spectacular sight indeed! They were absolutely silent in flight, not at all like other birds their size.

We do see them fairly frewuently, and hear them all the time, just the other night we had a little concert that lasted most of the night. Last week I had one fly through the backyard in the middle of the day pursued by a half-dozen or so crows. That was a racket!

We have a lot of birds around here including eagles. It’s fun watching them fish. I see Owls all the time but can never get a picture. I was driving one day and an Owl hopped out of a tree and it had a mouse and piece of wheat in its grasp. It kept flying for a good 100 feet so I got a good view of it.

The most prominent and beautiful is this guy who likes to hang out on my railing. I posted it here before and was told it’s a red shouldered hawk.

Came home to find this guy sitting on the mailbox, we have plenty of the Hawks, Owls and Bats in the area since we're close to a big lake on the St Johns waterway.




We occasionally have a prehistoric non flying visitor

Mine ate all the cottontail babies from my yard one year.
Death from above!

Owls are awesome. I don't see them often, especially now that I'm on day shift, but they're around. Seeing them is always a treat. There was one hooting it up like crazy yesterday morning at 5:00am when I went out to run.

Very cool pics. Unfortunately, my wife and I got to see an owl up close and personal in our first apartment together. We had a fireplace and apparently it's mate fell and died,didn't know when and the partner stayed with it until we called animal control. They came and got the poor guy out. It was a Barn owl and what a beautiful bird.

We used to see them some and hear them often in the back yard, before they cleared the woods behind us for a new subdivision.

I used to see them occasionally out on the property, and was always impressed by how tough they were. It appeared that they flew right through the canopy, making quite the racket as they did so.

quote:

But that GHO was absolutely silent in his two-foot ascent. He was at least as big as a chicken too. I was amazed by that silence.

Silent flight is a characteristic of all owl species.

We have a nesting pair in our subdivision. We watched them last year and this year there is a webcam covering them.

https://niblickowls.com/