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Julie2Oregon
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# Posted: 12 Nov 2015 02:24am
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So my little terrier and I were outside around the firepit when I heard the unmistakable call of a great horned owl. Or two. We haven't had any around for at least a few years. The hoots continued and seemed to get closer so I scooped up the little guy and put him back in the house and returned outside.
I added a log to the fire and sat down. All of a sudden, there was a whoosh that blew the fire flames in the same direction and sent sparks flying. It was unlike anything I had experienced. It was a very still night and this was just weird, besides. Just when the fire had settled down, it happened AGAIN from the opposite direction!
It had to have been the owl or owls! Amazing. I wish I had the presence of mind to look up. I've heard the owls a lot over the past several years but I've never SEEN one. They're an amazing sight from the pics and videos I've seen.
But I'm really, really glad I got my dog inside! I'm not going to be able to have him out with me around the fire anymore but that's the way it will be in the forest, too, if there are great horned owls there. My big ole English bulldog isn't in any danger of being carried off, lol, so she can come out. 
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bldginsp
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# Posted: 12 Nov 2015 05:49pm
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Yeah, Great Horneds are pretty wonderful. Never had them swoop me like that, but there is a pair I hear at night at my place. One morning at dawn I got up and heard them, and went looking to see them, and caught sight of one sitting in the very top of a pine tree hooting away to call to her mate. Big, beautiful birds. Wonder if they could carry off a terrier, hope you never find out.
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gsreimers
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# Posted: 12 Nov 2015 07:49pm
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One night this summer, up at the cabin with Owen (cabin builder supreme) and Kelsey and John his helpers, after dinner we were sitting in the dark on the front porch having a cigar and an adult beverage and observed an owl come out of the trees and down to the ground several times. Very cool to watch. It got better when it came and landed on the porch rail for a second about 3 feet from Kelsey and John.
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Julie2Oregon
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# Posted: 12 Nov 2015 07:57pm
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bldginsp I'd love to see one of them sometime!
A contractor who did some work for me a few years ago was telling me how one took his wife's Pomeranian. He said it was pretty awful -- they could hear the dog's frantic cries as the owl was flying off and they were powerless. Then he added that his wife was inconsolable for a long time but he was secretly glad that the dog was good for something besides whining incessantly and getting underfoot. Oh, dear! 
My terrier is about 13 pounds and a scrappy guy. Bob would put up a fight. Then again, I was reading about great horned owls today and they've been found to eat opossums, raccoons, skunks sometimes, and an occasional fox. On a few occasions down here in the Southwest, great horned owls ate armadillos. I don't know how they managed that!
I've got to keep my eye on the little guy. Geez, I forgot how dark it gets early now and he was playing out in the backyard alone in the dark until I remembered!
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Salty Craig
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# Posted: 12 Nov 2015 09:29pm
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The other Saturday when I was hunting, one landed on a limb 30 couple feet in front of me. I was able to set and watch him for quite a while. At that distance I could see every detail. A really magnificent bird. I was awe struck at his beauty.
Craig
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Julie2Oregon
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# Posted: 12 Nov 2015 11:27pm
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I haven't seen a great horned but, a few decades ago in New Hampshire, I did see what I call a snowy owl which may or may not be accurate. Absolutely gorgeous creature. Huge white owl with amber-colored eyes. It just happened to fly into the backyard of someone I was visiting and land on top of her clothesline post. We watched it through her kitchen window and it sat there for about 10 minutes staring in our direction before taking off.
It's funny. I taught literature at high schools near the border with Mexico so most, sometimes all, of my students were Hispanic. When I discussed mythology and symbolism in poetry and stories with my students, I didn't understand initially why they had such negative visceral reactions to owls. Turned out, owls in Mexican folklore were harbingers of bad tidings, death; very different from our depiction of owls representing wisdom and insight.
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upndown
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# Posted: 13 Nov 2015 12:31am
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When I first bought my house, one of the first things I bought off CL was a swing for my front porch. One afternoon after work I was sitting on the swing enjoying a cold beer, I heard him, a big beautiful owl sitting on top of my power pole, mysterious looking creature.
Another bird I find amazing is a Harris Hawk, I have a mating pair that I see and hear a lot. One afternoon I was sitting on my swing pondering thoughts with my higher power, something I do often these days, I heard his call, scared the hell outta me as he was sitting just above me on my antenna just above my head. He couldn't see me because of my covered porch. He was communicating with his mate sitting on my neighbor across the streets power pole, my house sits in the middle of 1.3 acres, so she was quite a ways from me, but I could see her. Beautiful birds.
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Julie2Oregon
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# Posted: 13 Nov 2015 02:47am
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upndown
Wow! LOL, a hawk that close would freak me out, I think!
Before drought killed off all of my honeysuckle vines, I had a LOT of hummingbirds around my property. They were the sweetest things. I'd sit on my front porch and they'd fly right over to me, hovering just inches from my face! When I'd open my front door in the morning, they'd fly up to the storm door and I'd talk to them through the screen, lol. Sadly, they slowly stopped coming around after the honeysuckle died. I couldn't keep sugar water out for them because of all of the freaking stray cats around. And fireants.
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upndown
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# Posted: 13 Nov 2015 11:08am
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Julie, that's funny. But I don't think you'd have to worry, they're more instirested in mice, pack rats and the occasional snake than they are in us. At least my pair don't seem the least bit worried if I'm out waking in the yard. I think they've figured out I intend them no harm! Hell they probably look at me from their perch thinking..Strange looking creature, but he's harmless haha.
I too have noticed a decline in the humming bird population at my house, now the cactus wren are another story. They keep me entertained for hours at my bird feeder. Curious little birds, sometimes to a point of being a pain in the arse. Now the cabin is a different story, humming birds everywhere. I took my feeder up there and boy they were just having themselves a time. The previous owners left a feeder stand back by the pine trees. The next time I went up, just full of ants. Grrrr.. It was like a super highway going to the feeder.
Who needs TV when I have that much entertainment right in my own yards, between the birds, the bunnies and the occasional snake.
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Derby42
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# Posted: 13 Nov 2015 03:44pm
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I have seen owls several times when I was out in the woods. I used to hunt raccoons and would wonder all through the woods at night. Once I was walking up a dry stream bed and saw eyes reflecting back at me. As I got closer I could see it was a screech owl. They seem to be less afraid of people than other owls. This one let me walk right up to it. It was perched on a branch about five feet off the ground. When I would shine my light in his eyes the pupils would instantly shrink down to small black dots , I would shut off the light for just a second and flip it back on and they would already be huge black orbs again. Probably gave him a headache , lol, but it sure was amazing. Such a gentle and beautiful little bird.
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Don_P
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# Posted: 14 Nov 2015 08:19am
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They do seem to not mind us much. Over the summer the shop down by the sawmill was becoming a bat roost, I'd go in and there would be 20 or so hanging from the ridge, which would be fine if they would relieve themselves outside. It was making a mess but I really didn't want to run off an army of bug eaters. Then I went in one morning and they were gone. I worked for awhile and then heard him come out of the stacks and up onto a truss. The screech owl was back, this round of events had happened several years ago. We didn't bother one another for several hours he just hung out in the trusses, too full to move I imagine and was gone the next day. I've heard the bats under the eaves, so a bit more wary. The screech owls will freeze and we try not to notice that we are noticing one another.
Several years ago it was roosting dusk for the chickens but the y kept milling around the coop and wouldn't go in. My wife tossed one in and it immediately popped right back out. So she opened the door and stepped in. I'm sure the little screech owl sitting on that perch thought he had arrived at a fast food diner and supper was about to fly through that window. Luckily he made it out unscathed.
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groingo
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# Posted: 17 Nov 2015 12:18am - Edited by: groingo
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I have a couple of resident Great Horned owls who like to have hoot offs in late summer evenings as well as early fall.
This past summer one was hooting away and so I went to take a picture, I didn't see him but he saw me and dove at me ( likely my hat) I ducked and when he swept over you could feel the wind from his wings but he also left two large feathers behind, now fit snuggly in my hat.
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NorthRick
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# Posted: 18 Nov 2015 11:57am
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How interesting that you brought this topic up. We almost never see owls around our cabin. Last weekend we went out to the cabin on our snowmachines (snowmobiles to you southerners), as the area had gotten over a foot of snow and temperatures were in single digits (fahrenheit). Somehow I still managed to find a real soft spot under the snow and got my snowmachine stuck in the mud late in the evening.
Next day, I went back with my wife's snowmachine to get mine out and in the course of riding around the woods trying to find the best spot to pull from, a large bird flew off a branch and away from me through the woods. My first thought was that it was a raven, we have plenty of those. But, it was gray, not black, and although flying away from me, it's head was too big for a raven.
So, I thought, was that an owl? Owls that I have seen up here are medium-small and this was not a small bird. Looked it up after I got home and decided that it must have been a Great Gray Owl. Which, turns out, live up here and are one of the largest owls in the world. Learn something new every day.
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manny
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# Posted: 18 Nov 2015 04:23pm
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had a great horned owl drop a load of gravy all over my hat and hunting coat a few yr,s back, while on my way to my tree stand.The boys at the camp thought it was funny , I found it sticky an stinky. 
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