Tyto Alba came to my house last night…
When I got home from work at 8:30 there was a familiar “click click click” sound coming from overhead. I recognized it as being a barn own echolocating and glanced up. Barn owls have asymmetrical ear placement and can locate their dinner entirely without the use of sight. They are enormously widespread across the globe, and its thought that they eat more rodents in a single night than any other animal!
Nothing to see at first. I took my briefcase out of the car, still looking up. ‘click click click!’ The sound came closer, closer. And then a burst of white like a flapping cloud as the barn owl flew over my home and yard. Beautiful to see. We used to have owls every night until the habitat in the video above was senselessly destroyed by tree shaving. Sigh. I’m always happy when we get a sighting now.
Click Click Click. He circled back, coming closer. Then a heron-sounding squawk, or maybe a screech, sounded from the bushes right where I was standing. The clicking came closer, and the screech rose in a white plume of feathers and became another barn owl! Taking flight right from my bushes! And they clicked and screeched to each other, gaining altitude, sky dancing in the darkness above me. It was breath taking!
Let’s hope the clicking and circling was the fella saying “I have a great place to nest, baby, follow me!” And the rising screech was his intended saying, “I guess you’re kinda cute.” And they’re going to raise lovely feathered babies right near my house (or your house) soon!
