Pamela

A snowy owl was reported in Texas a number of years ago and I and three of us hopped in the car on an Easter Sunday and traveled west, about an hour from Fort Worth. The owl was in a field just sitting, relatively far away but wonderfully visible with my scope. We spent about 45 minutes watching it, letting some youngsters view the owl through the scope. Texas is quite far south for them but I later learned that it was an irruption year so there were quite a few spending the winter away from their usual habitat. Another owl; a barred owl in the next backyard about 9:00pm on a spring evening. This is the bird that got me into birding as I was so excited in seeing it I bought my first pair of binoculars the next day! A friend and I were sitting on her deck looking at the river and watching the beavers that would swim by each night. I heard a slight "swish" on my left and looked up. A barred owl had landed on a branch and it had a mouse by the neck in its mouth. The wind was blowing its feathers and I shone my flashlight on it. We looked at each other, it lifted a leg and put the mouse in its talons and then flew to a lower branch. Another brief stare at each other and then it was off. I can visualize this entire interaction 20 years later.