I saw two owls tonight, really close! They are so beautiful. They were sitting on the treehouse of the kids next door when I got home from Stoneline. One was bigger than the other, and the smaller one looked kind of fuzzy around the lower part of its body, like it was still losing its chick feathers. So we think it might have been young. When I pulled into the driveway, two bunnies scampered away. I bet the owls were scoping the bunnies as potential dinner.
I couldn't believe how close the owls were. They didn't fly away even though my car pulled in, Georg came out to close the gate, the dogs came out, I went in to get my camera, came back out and took their picture. I posted a photo of both of them in the photolog, and here's a close-up of the bigger one.
I am so getting a telephoto lens! Just think how these photos might have turned out if I could have gotten a decent close-up.
I compared my photos to the photos on the Owl Pages. They are definitely barred owls, as we thought from their call. The weird thing is, they weren't making the call we've already heard before. They were making a quiet screech to each other, which threw me off a bit. The Owl Pages didn't say barred owls could screech. But I listened to the barn owl's screech and it sounded nothing like what our owls were doing. It feels kind of silly to call them "our owls," of course they aren't ours. But I feel attached to them. They've been living in the woods around the house since we moved in and we've heard them year after year.
Georg and I watched the pair for a while, and they watched us. Eventually one of them walked over to the other, then flew away. The other one joined it soon after, but we continued to hear them screeching for at least another hour.
Yay for the owls!
5 Comments
that is so COOL! and what a great photo the closeup one is! i strongly encourage you to get a telephoto lens, solely so i can admire your cool neighborhood wildlife.
you know, I went and looked at the telephoto lens I want, and it's not that expensive and gets in really close. So I was feeling really bad about procrastinating and not having it today when opportunity arose.
But then I realized that fumbling around with the lens would have slowed me down a lot, and I might not have gotten gotten back outside with the camera before the owls flew away. So I'm not going to stress out about it. I got a decent shot of the owls. Next time maybe I'll get a great one :)
oh, they're so beautiful!!!
Sarah, I'm trying to email SarahO (I hope that's you). I was on the low-carbers web page and it won't let me email you, so I clicked on your web page and it brought me here. You had posted a message once mentioning that you had a low-carb Lamb Korma recipe with crispy onions---I'd love to have it!!! can you send it to me? Thanks! Sorry this is totally off-topic for this page.... Tracy
Hi Tracy, that's me all right! I've been happy to send you the lamb korma recipe, that's one of my favorite dinners :)
I think I might have posted that recipe on the low carbers forum already. I'll go see if I can find it & if not, I'll email it to you.