We Have Owls

My mom stayed over last night.  We were telling stories.  I was knitting.  She was crocheting.  It was late.  It was dark.  We heard screeching.

I went outside to make sure the alpacas were ok.  They didn't care about the screeching.

I told my mom that I thought it was a bird and then made a joke about it being a Screeching Owl.

The screeching continued.

Mom decided she had to find out what it was.  She took the alpacascope (a huge, bright flashlight), went outside and waited patiently.

A few minutes later, she came in and told me it was an owl.

What?! An Owl! I was just joking around.

I ran out side to see a good-sized owl perched on top of an electric pole in our yard. 

We watched it for a few minutes.  We saw it's head moving around as it screeched.

We decided to see if we could get closer.  It watched us, then flew to the next pole.

We stopped to watch it fly.  The bird was large and silent.  It displaced a second owl when it reached the new pole.  So we watched that one fly out of the alpacascope's range.

Then we noticed there was a third owl, sitting on the wire connected to the first pole.  The third owl seemed to be smaller, maybe younger than the first.

We watched it for a few minutes.  Then we got cold standing in the middle of our yard, in our jammies, in the middle of the night.  So we went inside to see if we could figure out what kind of owls they were.

My mom is pretty sure they were Common Barn Owls.  She's a retired cop, very observant and remembers details extremely well.  So, I think she's probably right.  The Common Barn Owl lives in our area.

The owls screeched much of the night.  I'm sure we both fell asleep before they did.