Tuesday, April 25, 2006

sleep deprivation

I've had trouble sleeping recently, and in the process have been enjoying the company of one of my wild friends, a Barred Owl (strix varia) thats been prowling around the woods near my house, and even the tree outside my window. We got a glimpse of it yesterday evening before dusk actually, though Steve saw more of it than I did. I actually saw it in the darkness later on as it flew past my neighbors white house. Pretty cool, it's a big bird and made absolutely NO sound at all as it flew. Listen to the "typical call" found on the following web page (thats what I heard for about an hour and half straight last night)

http://www.owlpages.com/owls.php?genus=Strix&species=varia

I cant tell if I'm staying awake because of him, but he's certainly been noisy.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Owl's are wicked cool birds!

Birds of prey are some of the most spectacular animals. I was a Lake Champion (Younglife Camp) last year and there were Bald Eagles nesting on the camp ground. There was one time, I was sitting in a rocking chair and about ten feet away one of the eagles swooped down to take out a chipmunck. It was an amazing thing to watch.

Anonymous said...

It's really not cool to watch an eagle take out a chipmunk. Chipmunks are cute and little! If it had taken out a squirrel...that would have been cool ;-)

Brian said...

we had a hawk behind my parents house for a week or so once during the winter...they like it when it snows (they can see the animals better). There was a squirrel that had apparently been attacked, and got away. He came up to my parents bird feeder and his back was sliced open, but he was just hungry for some bird seed.

My mom was horrified earlier that week when she looked out the kitchen window as she made dinner, and saw the hawk take out a dove.

Oh then theres the story of my cousins and I on a walk at my grandparents house and we see a golden eagle across the street tossing around a squirrel body, trying to get the best parts out. It was sitting at ground level, kind of strange.