It’s been quite the journey in finally getting to see one.

All my life, I had never heard an owl “who” until a few years ago and it was so cool. Better than I could have ever imagined. I love all types of birds. We have a lot of hawks in my area that I love seeing often along with the other birds everyone is quite familiar with. Seeing them glide above and hearing their screeches is such an awesome experience.

Back in school, we did dissect owl droppings and even glued the skeletons to form a complete rodent skeleton on a piece of paper.

I have found owl droppings here too.

Then there was one time when we to let the dogs out and they were making a ton of noise. In the trees, I could see a big brown bird with a huge wingspan silently move from one branch to another to get deeper in the darkness of the small forest. I searched everywhere in there for what I knew was an owl but couldn’t find it anywhere. I had never seen such a massive wingspan or not hear a single thing. Not even a grip of tree branches or rustle in the leaves.

Then yesterday I let the dogs out again and they ran into the dried up pond and I saw a massive wingspan yet again go from the dried bed of the pond to a group of trees above. There, I finally laid eyes on this amazing creature. I had never seen anything quite like it before. It stared right back at me with very faint but bold yellow eyes. It turned its head to see the dogs who were making a ton of noise to my side then back to me. I could tell it was quite scared of us and so I backed away to give it some space.

As we backed up, I saw bones and a rabbit’s foot with its fur still intact. Looks like we had disturbed a meal, or the ending of the meal. I got some pictures, but they were quite blurry and far off.

Then today, as we went down again, I saw it perched on top of an old metal fence, very low to the ground. I tried to quietly get the dog to come back but he couldn’t hear me. The owl saw him and flew off into the trees above. Here is where I saw it more closer and I could see more details so clear.

This picture does my experience justice. (Not a shill, but I got this with the Adobe Indigo app I just downloaded today and it greatly helped me take a much clearer picture that was far away.)

I’m so in awe of this nocturnal bird. I didn’t want to scare it anymore than we already have so I’m going to try to be more gentle in the future as much as we can. I feel lucky to caught it as the sun is going down and as it is beginning its own day.

There’s a massive nest in one of the trees and I’m thinking that might be its home. May even be a mother or planning to settle here with some new owls of its own? I’m hoping so. We have a bad rodent problem here and these owls are so beautiful and graceful. Would be a welcome exchange, in my opinion.