I've been absolutely thrilled to learn about the thriving owl population in North Carolina, most recently reported in the Observer in Count of owl species encouraging. Owls are strange in so many ways - the mythology, their physical look with big eyes and rotating head, the fact that they're usually nocturnal, "owl pellets," and of course the hoot! It's been strange to have several run-ins with owls and owl lovers within the last few months.
Since early spring, I've been trying to snap a picture of the owl that lives in our backyard. Just when I got serious about taking his picture, however, s/he stopped making noise. Interestingly, I found a really big black snake in our backyard about the same time Mr. Owl stopped hooting. I'm hopeful that the snake didn't eat the owl, but instead that between the two of them they cleared out every one of the daggum burrowing critters that keep tearing up my backyard! Point being, until he gets back from his European vacation or whatever, the attached picture of some random owl will have to suffice.
Just as my interest in "our" owl reached its zenith, Emily bumped into an old friend, Cori, who is now studying owls in graduate school! She helped us identify our owl as a barred owl (strix varia), known for the diversity of their calls. The one that really wigged me out, and piqued my curiosity about our avian co-tenant, was the male-female mating call and response, though the male mating call is pretty impressive too even if it is pretty standard. One of Cori's professors at UNC-Charlotte maintains a web site about barred owls that is really cool, not only for the information that it provides but also for the fact that there's a professor right up the street from where we live studying barred owls in our neighborhood. Of course, Charlotte is home to the Carolina Raptor Center (which also has information about barred owls), but I still think it's interesting that all of this research is going on right here in little Charlotte.
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