Whoooo?

We had four great horned owls in the neighborhood last night, including two in our yard. When you can hear them over the TV with the windows closed, you know they are close.

Thanks to the brightness of the moon, I was able to see two of them. One of them was in the big catalpa tree right outside our window. He flew off when I went outside to get a better look. I'm not sure I'd ever seen a great horned in flight (if I had, I didn't know that is what it was) and I didn't realize what a large bird it is. This one must have had a wingspan of nearly four feet across as he glided, fully-spread to a tree in our neighbor's yard.

The other one was perched on the remnant of a tree along the back of our yard. He was silhouetted against the sky and very easy to spot. Again, he was much bigger than I would have expected, easily dwarfing the red-tailed hawks we often get. He was calling back and forth with two other owls who were somewhere in the distance to the south of our house.

It was very coo-coo-cooooooo-coool.*

*Officially the corniest thing ever written on this blog.