Listen for the Great Horned Owls

Remember this post from about two weeks ago when I published the world's crappiest camera phone pic of a Great Horned Owl that was perched on a utility tower in the Interurban easement? 

Clearly not one of my better artistic achievements.

Well, check this out - I'm now following that up with some equally-crappy video that I shot last night up by the same easement.  This is only ten seconds long, but you'll probably have to turn up your computer's volume to hear the interesting sound it contains:

In case you'd like to see what these magnificent creatures look like and sound like up close, here for comparison is somebody else's non-crappy short video showing one in captivity (turn the volume on your computer back down before hitting 'play'!).

As near as we could tell from the sound, there were two of them hanging around the east side of Centerpointe last night.  They started out in the Interurban easement around 8:00 p.m. with their hooting, but then an hour or so later, one of them moved into the large pine tree at the corner of Centerpointe Drive and West Walker.  After walking the dog, I hung around in our back yard for a few minutes just to hear a bit more of what they had to say. 

So listen for their haunting calls the next time you find yourself walking along West Walker or the eastern section of Centerpointe Drive.  I have no idea what prompted all this hooting last night, given that I had not heard them on previous recent walks, but they were literally calling out every thirty seconds.  If cars are flying by on West Walker, the sound will be obscured by the noise, but when a gap in traffic comes, you might be able to hear them coming through loud and clear in all their mysterious feathered glory.