Buzzed

A couple of evenings ago while out walking with Molly I spied a great horned owl sitting up in the branches of a ponderosa pine maybe 25 feet off the ground.  We had inadvertently strayed within 20 feet of it before seeing it, stopping and gradually edging away.  It couldn’t have cared less.  It paid no attention to me or Molly but got very interested when we were joined by one of the cats from the house.   Denine drove up and motored along under the tree on the way in to the house.  The bird never moved.  But ten minutes later as I had stepped off the driveway to watch through my binoculars, the owl dove out of the tree and flew straight down the corridor of the trees straight at me.  It dipped over my head about ten feet above me never making a sound as it flew by.

The next night the woods were alive with the hooting of great horned owls and the screechy calls of barn owls.  I put a barn owl call on my cell phone and sat just outside the barn after dark.  I played the barn owl call and within thirty seconds saw an owl drop out of one of the trees above me – I could see was a silhouette against the night sky and heard a faint wing flap.  A minute later another owl flew in between the trees and veered off with a pale flash of white under it’s wings.  I was seriously excited at that point and a little freaked out.  A couple of minutes later I replayed the owl call and saw another flash of white pull up into the tree next to me.  Another owl.  After settling a bit, it hopped to a lower branch and again jumped to a closer branch not long afterwards.  It seemed curious and unconcerned as I shifted around trying to stay warm. 

The picture below was taken with my cell phone as I was getting up to leave.  As far as I could tell the owl just hung out as I was heading back inside.

Barn Owl