In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.
Owls
Oakie
Member Posts: 40,510 ✭✭✭✭
Darn things are back this year again. We get three of them hooting away around our house. They show up every fall and spring. These suckers are LOUD!!!!!!!!!!!!! Three O'clock this morning, I was ready to take target practice. At first they were enjoyable to listen to. Now they are driving us crazy. I have no idea what kind they are, but they have rather big bodies, so not thinking a barn owl.
Comments
Not sure. I would think so. We have a lot of farms around here
Take care. The old Ozark hill people (my Grandma included) swore that an owl hooting outside your window predicted a death in the family. Michael Murphy alluded to that in his song "Wildfire." I wouldn't worry though, as I routinely talk to owls down in my holler using one of those owl hoot calls made for turkey hunting.
Probably Great Horned owls. It is mating season. And owls are gonna so what owls do!
who?
Who, Who, Who, Sitting on my daughters fence post in Delaware County upstate NY. ___Ray
Looks like a Great Grey owl. Beautiful picture.
Raymond, that is a barred owl. and Merlinnv is right about your owls Oakie, likely Great Horned and it is courting/nesting season. All owls are meat eaters, from insecets to rodents, to rabbits and skunks, there is an owl for most any prey up to Jack rabbits.
Leave the hooters alone.. love to hear them at night..
Of all of the owls I have encountered, the Screech Owl is the noisiest!
I like owls.
We have great horned owls hooting in our backyard every winter, they don't bother me as I take my hearing aids out at night.
Who cooks for you...Who cooks for you all thats what the owl sounds like is singing. according to old river rat Willie Mason
They have been real vocal around here too. I had the window open the other night and there was one in the front yard and one in the back yard calling back and forth. It was interesting to listen to at first. After an hour or so, I had to shut the window !
discusdad-Right on. Normally they right outside our bedroom window. Noisy SOB's😉
As a kid there was a big owl that lived in the huge cedar tree across the alley from us. The owl would sit on the window sill of my bedroom window. I would sit right at the window quietly and watch the owl. He paid me no attention as he was watching the large goldfish (8,10, 14 inch long) in dads fish pond right below him. He would swoop down grab and go. We all liked the owl a lot but dad didn't like him getting meals out of the pond.
I like hearing owls. It's the dang woodpeckers that bang on the gutters to advertise......
While I like all these posts having “Owls” in the title, I open them and find out it’s just about some bird. Where’s the next insightful post from @owles .
That is generally said to be the call of the white winged dove. Never heard an owl blamed for that.
it landed a little before dark near the deer stand I was hunting a few years ago
I don't know why the picture is sideways on here and is not that way on my phone
I watched an owl catch a squirrel off a pine limb one morning while I was deer hunting. Quite a sight to behold. BTW---they don't taste like chicken! (squirrel or owl!)
That is that barred owl again. They are bold.
If I'm remembering correctly it was discovered that the reason for the decline in the numbers of spotted owls back in the '80's wasn't necessarily due to logging, but was more related to the barred owls out-competing them and also breeding with them.
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
Now that you mention it I haved not heard a screech owl in years.
Spotted owls only reproduce in old growth forest. Barred owls are less fussy, thus the success of barred owls was not the reason for the spotted owl decline, it was a by product of the spotted owls loss of old growth forest being replaced by new forest plantings.
I was reading that there are 250 known species of owls in the world. Living everywhere except on the continent of Antartica.
I get a bit confused seeing Barred Owls also being called Barn Owls in a lot of descriptions of photos online.
One of my favorite owls that I have encountered sporadically over the years is the Snowy Owl. Seen during the winter months around here, usually sitting on fence posts and telephone poles overlooking large fields.
Barred owls and barn owls don't really look much a like, as you no doubt know Brookwood. On-line information can be spotty at best for accuracy, ya need a good field guide or cell phone app.
I am envious, I have seen short eared owls in eruption years, but never a wild snowy.
There is a Eur-Asian owl called the little owl, about the size of a barn owl that hunts in the day time. That is fun.
Spotted owls are mean bastards.
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
...been lucky enough to see a few owls...couple of the best, several years ago turned on to the last rock road to the house and happened to look at the pasture on my right, an owl was standing there looking at me looking at him, and he had a field rat hanging out of his beak...never flew off as I went by...another time, in the woods squirrel hunting and walked up within 15 feet of a Great Horned Owl just standing there, they're BIG!...he flew off after about 10 seconds...heard different owls at night all my life, cool birds...
Several years ago I was out in my hunting shack waiting for Bambie to come along. A Great Horned Owl landed in a tree branch very close to my position and just sat there grooming itself for a day of sleep I presumed. I really enjoyed watching him!! He stayed the entire time I was there. No deer showed up that day but it made for a lifelong memory!
I told this story to my late uncle who was a very wise old hunter. He shared with me an old Indian tale.
"If an owl interrupts a hunt by landing nearby, it is best to leave and just return to your home wig-wam. Your hunt will not be successful that day."