Owls

I saw two on Sunday, July 20, 2008.

It was in the late evening and it was dusky. I think it was about 8:30 p.m. perhaps. I was taking a bucket containing pieces of vegetables and some old fruit down to the creek north of the barn.

As I was approaching the area near the old silo the first owl flew from the barn or from a tree near the barn to another large tree north of the road. I thought it was a hawk at first.

I disposed of my burden over the fence and began to walk back to the house. The second owl swooped down in front of me then and landed in a tree just north of me. I turned and looked at him (I'm pretty sure because he was smaller than the first) for several seconds. He just looked back at me.

Then I walked on back up the hill towards the house. I heard a squawking of a Mocking Bird and turned my head back towards the barn. Just in time I saw my owl swoop from his perch and catch something from the yard over which I had just seconds before walked. I could not tell what he had. He landed in the tree just against the barn. The Mocking Birds were going crazy and eventually drove him from that tree.

Later when we were leaving the house and walking to the car I saw him again.

I had to borrow the image from Wikipedia.

So the next day I took my camera with me and went down to the same place but no owls were to be seen.

So I walked inside the old barn and stood very, very still for a few minutes.

It was dark and my eyes adjusted after a bit. Finally, I saw him in the highest possible rafter at the north end of the barn.

It was very dark there. If he had not been white I think I would not have seen him. I took six images but they are not so good. I found the one to the right on Wiki. These guys are called Barn Owls or Monkey Face Owls.

I read that they are among the most common vertebrates on the planet.

I walked down on Tuesday to see if he was still there and he was. But as soon as he saw me he flew away. I felt kind of bad about it actually.