Hoot

While I've seen quite a few different species of owls now, never have I heard one hoot.  That's not to say I haven't heard owls before...just that the ones that I have heard were squacking or shrieking.  In fact, only a few owl species in BC actually hoot.  So a few nights ago, when I heard hooting through the walls of my house, I had to investigate.

Outside our home are several tall conifers.  We noticed a source of hooting in the tree right at our back door.  In fact, in the blackness of the tree, I could see some lighter-coloured movement that must've been the owl.  But it wasn't the only one.  A nearby tree was also responding with hooting; they were calling to each other!  I saw an owl fly off, but there was still hooting at that tree, which meant there must've been three owls initially!  The owls continued calling to each other for quite some time, so after I was satisfied with as good a photo as I could with manual focus and a 50 mm lens, I ran back inside to grab a longer lens. By the time I emerged the second time, the owls were gone.

Here's an excerpt of two of them calling to each other
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mEbsAJqRk3tfNDU6xwB_4xHLo4dh8YhS

The call, combined with a sasquach-like photo makes me fairly certain they were great-horned owls.

Our last snowfall

As coincidence would have it, the arrival of another flock of snow geese came the day before we had an actual snowfall.  Got some closeup video of the geese feeding, and some interesting group behaviour, including the moment when they all notice a pair of bald eagles approaching.