A first post (owls #1)

The first posts will not be in chronological order. I've saved up some stuff that's happened in the last few months, and will mix topics so as not to seem mono-topic, at least at first. And please forgive any formatting problems in these early posts.

We had been hearing owl sounds in the early spring (March) without hearing a classic identifying call. (Birds do not read the field guides.) Finally, we heard the "who, who, who cooks for you?" of the barred owl, and in late March, while I was out of town, Joan, my wife, saw a barred owl at the edge of the woods behind our house, illuminated by the light from our neighbor's deck. As excited as were were, this was just the beginning. The owls seemed to be unconcerned about the presence of humans.

As April progressed, we saw more of the owls. We became aware that there were at least two, and once saw a prey handed off from one to the other. Finally, we discovered that they were nesting in a sycamore tree at the edge of the woods, just over in the property of our neighbors to the north. (We live in a subdivision so the distance between houses is minimal!) I got one hasty picture of an owl (probably Mama) diving into the fissure in the sycamore.

This was just the beginning!