Kara, barred owls are a...ready?...HOOT to listen to, aren't they? With their very loud, "Who cooks for you, who cooks for YOU-aaaaallll?" And then the cackling battles they get into...reminds me of laughing hyenas in the African bush. They are very easy to call up, too. I have known people who could do a perfect call, and even I can call them, though my rendition is far from perfect. But I have had them answer me many times, and come swooping in to see if there was a strange owl in their territory that needed to be investigated. They are the only one of our owls that are often active in full daylight, and they are the only one with black eyes instead of yellow. They are big owls, and the lack of "ear" tufts makes them easy to tell apart from a great horned owl. They are definitely my favorite one. Except possibly for the cute little burrowing owls in the Cape Coral area. Glad you are enjoying them. They sure do spice up a summer night, don't they? Marcia

Sorry and sad to hear that your cat has vanished. I'm no expert, but ever since hearing (and seeing on one occasion) what I think was a Great Horned owl in my backyard, I've done alot of research on them and read that they do on occasion take cats as prey. Being the animal/wildlife and nature lover that I am, I'm still so excited to have Great Horned owls (in addition to skunks, possums, and raccoons) in my area, but feel really bad and sorry if your cat did indeed fall victim to one. As Elly noted in the above post, keeping cats and small dogs indoors from dusk to dawn is the best means of prevention.

Our 5 year old came running upstairs to our room yesterday morning yelling that there was a "really big bird" in our yard. Our yard backs up to a small park where a few hawks (red-tail and coopers) and some owls (great horned and screech) frequent. Anyhow, I finally spot the thing and see spots on it's belly and for a moment thought it was injured (it was hopping on the ground near some bushes). So, I get the binoculars out and it's a juvie red-tail trying to get a squirrel in the bushes! Very cool to know that they're breeding successfully here. There's also a couple squirrels with problems that need culling (one with a giant abcess the size of a golf ball on it's shoulder, one with part of it's talk missing etc). Hopefully they get eaten before they have to try and suffer through our tough winters (WI).

The neighbor saw the bear in her garbage at 11am one Wed, shouted to DH as he was walking up to wait for DD's bus. Hasn't bothered our garbage except at night. 6-yo DD is never outside alone (except when she went out at dusk looking for me one time when DH and I were in the attic putting the window I had just poly'd back in, and then I yelled at her to get back in the house, when we came down I told her I wasn't mad, but explained my concerns, esp. that time of night). 11 yo DS is large enough that a bobcat would not mess with him, we have explained to both of them about staying together (with a grownup if possible), making a lot of noise while they're out, so that a bear would know they're there, and to back away slowly while talking, not run, if they see a bear. I don't think it's likely they'll see a bear walking up the driveway to the bus so I let them go by themselves this AM, they have to stay together and the neighbor's house is very close to the end of our driveway if there is trouble. Thank goodness the black bears here are not as aggressive as grizzlies up north. But it worries me that it has gotten used to getting into the garbage in the neighborhood. We've been spraying ours with ammonia (the soaked Pullups didn't discourage it LOL), we don't put meat scraps or bones out until the night before pickup (early AM or else we'd just put it out that day), I keep them in ziploc bags in fridge or freezer til that night. We're going to be putting up a motion sensor floodlight on that side of the garage too. But it goes out on Wed nights/Thurs early AM and pulls garbage cans down the street (most of our neighbors have Thurs pickup, we have Friday) and then (before or after) comes to our house to see what we've got out (may have some kitchen or bathroom trash out from midweek, but as I said no food scraps - we compost everything but meat, about all it can get from our garbage is used Kleenex, Pullups, maybe a ziploc bag that might smell like deli meat). We don't let DS out to play in the woods by himself either. My brother and I used to all the time, my parents never seemed that concerned (though my dad had a run in with a "mountain lion" on this property when he was a boy, and DB found a bobcat in the play house when we lived down the road when he was a kid). I think I'd be more afraid of a gator than a black bear or a bobcat. You can't scare a gator off, can you?