I was cooling it inside Saturday after our Twin Falls State Park hike when my Sweetie let me know that the owls were making a ruckus outside. It was going on 8pm (we have daylight until well after 9pm). Earth, Wind and Fire were playing at Chateau and filling the valley with bass and applause from the audience. We wandered outside, and heard birds making a ruckus.

Ends up that birds don't like owls in the least. And they have good reason, having witnessed a out-of-the-nest chick get swooped up and carried away by an owl a weekend ago. So we walked along our road and above the stream we eventually saw the Barred Owl that the birds were going crazy over.

I took a few shots with the camera, but it was too dark and too far away. I decided I'd go grab my big zoom lens and was heading back to the house when that owl silently passed over my head to a large maple in our back yard. I walked over there and saw not just that owl, but also a smaller buddy:

Since we live on a hill with a decent angle, I was able to stand uphill and pretty much look at the two owls eye to eye. I took a load of pictures and uploaded them to my flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericri/ .

I did get my zoom lens and thank goodness it has an image stabilizer. The light wasn't great and it had to work overtime with my shaky hands and shaky body dealing with standing on a slopped hill (I should have grabbed my monopod, too). As a result, the pictures are not sharp, but they're okay.

Eventually a third owl showed up in a nearby tree:

They all hung-out, waiting for dusk.

Now I’ve met some of the locals who hang out in our woods, letting loose with the occasional "Who cooks for you?" hoot.