A very owly winter

As my friends and family know, I've been a very busy photographer since November and the owls have come out. I've spent nearly every weekend away from home looking for owls to photograph! This is the first year I've been able to find so many, since my birding friends have kept me up-to-date on recent sightings and local hangouts for owls.

This guy here, a Barred Owl, only lives about 15 minutes away from me! Here he is peeking out of a hole he likes to hide in.

Here he is again in the snow, looking sleepy.

There's two trees he hangs out at during the months of November to March along the Beach Road in Crooked Creek State Park.. This one with the hole he's been at more recently, but there's another one I've seen him in earlier in the year. Here are some of the first pictures I've taken of him in the other tree..

Not as photogenic of a perch I must say. Many branches in the way that you kinda have to find the spot where they're out of focus enough so you can get a good view of him.

Anyway, he's one of two barred owls in the park, I heard them making monkey sounds at each other one night. Here's a video of the sound they make (Not my video!)

I also heard them calling individually and I'm surprised as to how distinguishable they are! The one has a shorter, matter-of-fact call. "Who cooks for you. Who cooks for you all." The other has a longer and more syllable-stressed call, more of a "Who COOKS for YOU who COOKS for you alllllllllllll.."

Here's a recording of the second one that I took..

It's so cool to have an owl living so close to my house! One that I never knew about for all the years I've lived here!