Owls in my neighborhood

[c333davis]

I've fallen in love again... we have two wild Barred Owls in my Northeast Florida neighborhood.

A neighbor pointed out the first one as we were walking by her house a few weeks ago. Since then, I've seen the larger owl in that same tree as early as 2pm most days.

I often drive home on that street, and I stop under the tree to say hi to the owl. The other day, the owl was looking off into the distance and hooting (which was awesome, itself) and then I heard a return hoot. I followed the owl's line of sight and saw the second Barred Owl in a nearby tree. It's smaller than the first owl, so I think of it as a "she".

Since then, I've seen them in the same tree, though a few feet apart and on different branches.

Here's the smaller of the two owls.


Love!

[jus85411]

i love owls! i hear them all the time but rarely see them. and when you do its just awesome. their wingspan as adults is impressive!

[zookey]

Owls are magnificent animals. This one is beautiful! How did you get so close for a picture?

Beware though... owls have a bad habit of swooping down from the trees in front of cars at night and can be very dangerous.

[xrayjeeper83]

I hear them all the time, but rarely see them. Thats an awesome picture

[J-P]

very very cool!

Have you tried feeding them yet?

[FADE2BLACK_1973]

Beautiful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! One of my favs of birds of prey.

[RTR]

I hear owls locally with some frequency, but I have never yet sen one here in the wild. I am jealous!

[c333davis]

This pic makes it seem like I was much closer than I was... my Olympus camera has a great optical zoom; this owl was in a tree at least 20 ft up.

I'm not gonna try to feed it. Besides me being squeamish about its "food" (heck, I feel bad squashing snails for my gsp), I don't want the owls to associate people with food -- for the owls' sake.

[c333davis]

After looking at some of my other pictures of the owls, I think *this* is actually the larger one, and the picture in my original post is the smaller of the two owls.

[Troender]

My dad experienced an owl trying to land on his head! Luckily it was a small owl. My dad was sitting in the dark, right below a window. He is partly bald, so the light from the window almost made his head light up. The owl found that very interesting, and tried to land there three times. My dad didn't want it's sharp claws dug into his head, so he tried to chase it. After the third attempt, the owl landed in a nearby tree, sitting there staring at my dad, not understanding why he/she wasn't allowed to land on that nice, shiny place.

[J-P]

LOL!! trying to hatch an egg?

[El Scorpio]

We used to have owls down where I live. You'd hear some of them hooting back and forth during the night, then you'd hear a crow scream bloody murder. But, that was about ten years ago - haven't heard any more owls since then. I miss 'em, they sure were good at keeping the crow population in check.

[RTR]

Catbirds like some of our shrubs, and i have had one of them land on head - which was protected by one of my trademark Aussie terry-cloth hats. I do not need even normal sized bird claws in/on my balding scalp, that you very much anyway.

Either one of the owls or perhaps a hawk (we are on a migratory route plus have quite a few which live here) occasionally perches on the back of the south deck arbor and leaves us a nice ball of fur and bones. Just what everybody wants to find on the deck in the morning.

[FADE2BLACK_1973]

I have seen a good amount of owls around here. A good friend of mine rescued a great horn owl here while back and he was huge. I been thinking about building a owl box out back by my woods. Just to get some nesting close so I miht beable to se more. Owls around here are pretty thick about like our buzzers and hawks. You would not believe how thick they are. It's good that they all are doing really well in the wild now compare about 15 years ago. Mainly thanks to the fish and game.

[c333davis]

... leaves us a nice ball of fur and bones. Just what everybody wants to find on the deck in the morning.

There's actually a market for those! Just google "owl pellet" and see all of the results that appear. Students dissect them in biology classes. You could collect and sell the pellets, and use the money for aquarium maintenance.