Owl Spotting

I have lived here for more twenty years, but it wasn't until a few years ago that I noticed the owls in the neighborhood.  Perhaps the owls weren't here before, but I doubt it; I think that instead I just wasn't paying attention, that I didn't know what to look for.  Finally one evening I made an effort to remember what I heard and looked it up on line; it was a very distinctive sound, and it didn't take long to identify that it was the two-phrased hoot of the barred owl (hoo-hoo-hoohoo, hoo-hoo-hoohoo).  Barred owls are common in the southeast, and at least according to Wikipedia, they are doing very well in suburban neighborhoods if there are large trees available for breeding and roosting.  Although we have lost many of our large trees, there apparently are still enough for barred owls to make this home.

In his book about the owls of North America, Wayne Lynch says that in one study in Michigan, barred owls were found to defend a territory of about 1 square mile.  Good territories may be retained for many years; he says that barred owls are known to have occupied one wooded area in the northeastern United States for 34 years.  Sometime last year the question of owls came up on a neighborhood email list, and lots of people described where they hear and see them in the neighborhood; one person said there have been nesting pairs in her yard for 20 years.

I'd hear them in the dark, but to see them, you have to wait, and look toward the sound, and if you do sometimes you can see them.  I had never actually seen one until a year or so ago, when early one evening I heard the distinctive hoot.  The owl was nearby, I could tell, and it sounded like it was on the other side of the street.  I stopped what I was doing and looked toward where I thought the sound was coming from and eventually saw it, roosting on a branch of a tree behind the houses across the street.  I watched it and then, astonishingly, it took to flight and headed across the street, pretty low and not far in front of me, but absolutely silent.  It then disappeared over our house.  It happened so quickly, and I was so surprised, that I could not tell you anything else about it other than that it was large, and it was close, and it didn't make a sound.  And then it was gone.

Since then I've seen owls a few more times.  I've caught a glimpse of one in the trees behind our house.  Then one evening a few weeks ago I was walking the dog after we got home from eating dinner out.  We were going around the block, and I was on Morningside headed toward Highland when I heard an owl.  I stopped, and I looked, and then I saw it fly right in front of me and then it was gone.  Again, it was all over too fast and I was too surprised to be able to say anything about what it looked like.

I have learned, when I hear an owl, to stop and look for it.  But I haven't yet learned how to really see it, when I see it.  I'll keep trying.