Hootie Hoo

For more than 10 years, Scott and I (and then Boylee when he came along) have spent our winter nights surrounded by the hoots of three or four owls who live very, very close to our house. Sometimes we hear them in the backyard, sometimes in the front.  They start their hooting around dusk and continue all night long.  Sometimes it's just one, and sometimes they're all hooting on top of one another. We have no idea what they're discussing, but we love hearing them.  

But in all this time we've never, ever seen one.  Mostly because we hear them at night.  And then also because they're perfectly concealed in the foliage.  Usually if we even step outside to look for them they stop hooting.  They're clearly seeing us better than we see them.

But tonight as Boylee and I got home, around 6pm, and Scott came out to the garage to greet us, we heard the hooting in a big tree across the street...a tree that was perfectly backlit by the last remnants of the day's sunlight.  And within 30 seconds we had all seen our first owl!  We didn't get a great look -- it was a silhouette -- but we could see his body move as he (she?) hooted, and we could tell that he was a very, very big owl.  And then he took off, and we watched him silently flap his wings and disappear into the wooded area behind our house.  

I love this neighborhood!