Hi Birders:
My dog, a small 17 pound Cocker Spaniel and I took a walk in our
neighborhood woods Sunday afternoon, Dec 9. The fog had thinned out, the
temp was down around 42, and it was almost dark at 4:35pm. In the woods in
the big trees, I heard the calls of a female Great Horned Owl and saw an owl
fly. As we came up the path, a male owl (smaller than female) perched above
us. I was a little concerned that my dog might be a owl snack, so we kept
on going. As we left the woods, the female kept calling, and then we heard
the male's lower hoots. His call sounds like "Who's awake, me too." Her
calls were higher pitched and sounded like "Who's awake, me too-who. At
that point they were both calling and continued to call, so the dog and I
doubled back, and I kept the dog on a very short leash. There was another
flight of an owl through the trees, and I saw the silhouette of the female.
She was huge. I think bigger than my dog in size. Sibley says they only
weigh 3.1 pounds. But Sibley also says these owls hunt animals up to rabbit
size. My dog sorta looks like a rabbit.
The owls kept calling (they had been calling for 10 minutes already) as we
continued on our walk. When we came back about 4:55, the woods were silent
and the owls were gone. I'm very glad I took my bins along as I had good
views of both owls despite the dark of the woods.
Yours, Carol Schulz
DesMoines, WA
linusq at att.net