For years, and I do mean years, we've had owls living in our neighborhood.
My house was built in 1950, the trees are mature around here and there are lots of them. Mice are everywhere and everyone knows owls nom on mice. It's always kind cool to hear their calls in the early morning, to know they're out there patrolling. I love them.
This morning Mitch and I started talking about maybe building an owl house right in the yard. How cool would that be? We talked about building bat houses a few years ago to the absolute horror of my sister-n-law, but never made it happen.* An owl house, though, would be even cooler than a bat house because everyone loves owls. Aside from hunting mice, they can move their heads ALL the way around. They have those gorgeous faces and near silent flight and fantastic movies made about them. Plus they're an endangered species so we would be doing our part to help out our fine feathered friends. And hello? They hoot!
Plus I think Larry would get along really well with them. And he's way too big to eat. Unless we got a Great Horned Owl or two. But then they would likely be much more interested in yippers than Larry. (They can start with the chihuahua who moved in across the street. His name is Poncho. He gets out ALL the time and thinks he can take on cars.)
Off to the Googles!
I quickly found some info sites and started listening to the owl calls because I wanted to identify our neighborhood buddies so I could find the proper house for them.
Are you ready for this?
This WHOLE time we've been hearing not owls but mourning doves!
Just listen (call starts at 16 seconds):
Doves.
DOVES.
Fucking impostors.
I mean, I guess they're sorta groovy.
But they're not OWL groovy. They're not even considered an endangered species. They're just, you know, birds. That are everywhere. Who impersonate much cooler birds and lead me to think my neighborhood has some serious wildlife swank going on.
I got totally owned by Mother Nature.
It's like my morning walk taking Libby to school just got a demotion.
I'm crushed.->
Song of the week:
*There's no hating on bats. Bats are fabulous. You can harvest their guano, which is just a fancy word for "poop" for fertilizer. AND they eat mosquitoes by the thousands. What's not to love? OK, there is that vampire thing but that's nothing but a myth. It was proven long ago that vampires aren't animagi. Only wizards can do that.
My house was built in 1950, the trees are mature around here and there are lots of them. Mice are everywhere and everyone knows owls nom on mice. It's always kind cool to hear their calls in the early morning, to know they're out there patrolling. I love them.
This morning Mitch and I started talking about maybe building an owl house right in the yard. How cool would that be? We talked about building bat houses a few years ago to the absolute horror of my sister-n-law, but never made it happen.* An owl house, though, would be even cooler than a bat house because everyone loves owls. Aside from hunting mice, they can move their heads ALL the way around. They have those gorgeous faces and near silent flight and fantastic movies made about them. Plus they're an endangered species so we would be doing our part to help out our fine feathered friends. And hello? They hoot!
Plus I think Larry would get along really well with them. And he's way too big to eat. Unless we got a Great Horned Owl or two. But then they would likely be much more interested in yippers than Larry. (They can start with the chihuahua who moved in across the street. His name is Poncho. He gets out ALL the time and thinks he can take on cars.)
Off to the Googles!
I quickly found some info sites and started listening to the owl calls because I wanted to identify our neighborhood buddies so I could find the proper house for them.
Are you ready for this?
This WHOLE time we've been hearing not owls but mourning doves!
Just listen (call starts at 16 seconds):
Doves.
DOVES.
Fucking impostors.
I mean, I guess they're sorta groovy.
But they're not OWL groovy. They're not even considered an endangered species. They're just, you know, birds. That are everywhere. Who impersonate much cooler birds and lead me to think my neighborhood has some serious wildlife swank going on.
I got totally owned by Mother Nature.
It's like my morning walk taking Libby to school just got a demotion.
I'm crushed.->
Song of the week:
*There's no hating on bats. Bats are fabulous. You can harvest their guano, which is just a fancy word for "poop" for fertilizer. AND they eat mosquitoes by the thousands. What's not to love? OK, there is that vampire thing but that's nothing but a myth. It was proven long ago that vampires aren't animagi. Only wizards can do that.
