It's a Hooo, Hooo, Hooo

Late this afternoon as I walked Presley up the hill in our usual walking direction, I heard the soft hooo, hooo, hooo from across the road. We stopped walking when she paused and looked up. I followed her gaze and watched an owl land on a pine tree branch above our heads. The owl was a mottled brown and as I stared at it, it blended into the pine bark. I blinked a few times, trying to focus fifty some odd year old eyes. This must have been the owl I had just heard.

By now, Presley is sniffing around the pine straw so I was about to cluck to her to move on (I know, clucking is for horses but old habits die hard). I glanced back up in the tree and another owl landed on a branch above the first one. Wow! Then the first owl took off, headed toward the lake and in a few seconds the other one followed. Their wing span was surprisingly large. They were larger than I realized.

Thanks to The University of Georgia, Museum of Natural History for their Georgia's Wildlife Website, I discovered that these were Great Horned Owls, common in Georgia and the largest owl in the Southern United States. Their call is a long series of hooo's (the website used 3 o's).  They live in wooded areas and hunt mostly at night.

Presley and I continued out walk as daylight slipped away, enjoying the almost full moon that rose over the quiet lake. And as we walked through the dark woods, I called out a long series of hooo's, hoping for an answer.