Give a Hoot

I went by the Wildlife Rehab and Education Center today and found this little group of guys. Three baby barn owls! (double click on the pic to see them close up)

I'd never seen a live owl before a year ago, and suddenly I am seeing them everywhere... like when I was in Hawaii to elope and we got caught in a forest fire ... I saw my first ever owl flying out of the grey smoke. He sailed right past my head and vanished into the ash behind me before I could really register what it was. It was eerie.  I felt I'd been visited by a spirit totem.

I saw the next one in a suburban tree when I visited a friend an hour north of Houston, such a paradox to my first experience, which is what's so cool about it.  Several times after that, I've seen this gorgeous bird on the grounds of the zoo when his Keeper decides to take him out for visitors to see one up close....

Maybe it's like that unexplainable thing that happens when something enters your consciousness, you suddenly have a heightened awareness of it. After 2 years of visiting the park almost daily without incident, I saw a very small one flying through the treetops one day last spring. I even managed to get a picture... Because it was so small, I couldn't identify it for sure until I got home, downloaded the picture and blew it up. Having gone my entire life never seeing anything other than the plastic owls on buildings or in gardens or maybe on a picture postcard, I think it's pretty amazing that I should see so many all of the sudden. 

Now, at the Rehab Center, I am adding to my collection of sightings  -- there is the the teeny weeny screech owl I posted a movie of a week or so ago (CLICK HERE), and this astonishing barn owl below, which is what the trio of babies at the top of the page will grow up to look like. I know they are quite common but I had never seen one with like this before. I mean, look at that face!  

They're fascinating birds, so beautiful and mysterious.  Have you ever had an owl encounter?