Almost don't wanna tell this on myself, but it's actually funny, and kinda cool.

Fairly often on my time off, I'll wake up in the night, and need to get up and move around. Summertime, I usually take the beagle with me and go outside to watch the night sky.

Recent weeks, I've been taking pics of birds with a borrowed camera. One cheat I use is to pull up Cornell labs bird sound recordings and play them on my phone to attract stuff like orioles and buntings.

Last night, we went out, and while I was parking my azz in the lawn chair a barred owl sounded off in the brush north of the house. The beagle and me waited to hear him again , but after 20 minutes or so I pulled out my phone and went to Cornell bird sounds. Played the first owl vocalization on the list. Nothing.
I'm sitting by the back of my truck using the tailgate as a table. I tapped on the second vocalization, and laid the phone on the tonneau cover about 2 feet from my head.
Wup, wup,wup, wup, wohooo... the phone went. I'm sitting there watching the beagle.All of the sudden she tenses and cocks her head up to the sky.
WHOOOOOSH.... Big pair of wings right past my head!!! I could feel the wind off them...

I'm old and fat. but I got pretty low, pretty quick. Not quite under the tailgate but I was ready for that too. Never had a roller coaster do that to me...

Had an owl take a bat out of the air couple feet above my head once while standing around campfire. Hunting buddy saw it and fell out of his chair yelling about it.
I just felt the wind looked up to see owl flapping hard to climb into tree.

I was calling for fox late one evening and had a tanned rabbit skin draped over my electronic caller when a barn owl swooped down from behind me right over my head and snatched that skin right off the caller. We were both bummed out by that, I'd bet. I, because I lost the skin, and he because there was nothing there for him to eat.

I was deer hunting in a swampy bear fill woods in Eastern NC. It was close to dark but I had a spot near a large pond with a bit of clearing around the edges....

I was thinking about walking out after dark with bear sign everywhere when a large owl flew just over my head and out over the pond.... totally silent it was just suddenly there right in front of me.... I about jumped out of my skin.

You talkin' about me?

I watched a documentary about owls years ago and came away very impressed. Besides the impressive eyesight and hearing they also can fly silently. Ultimate bird of prey.

Same here. I was using a hand call, owl almost got my baseball cap and probably almost a piece of my forehead.

Once many years ago, when I when I had set up on a deer stand before first light an owl whizzed by my head without a sound. It got my attention right quick. The quietest stalkers I think. Unbelievable how little sound it made as it glide inches from my right ear.

Nick

Found a hatchling Great Horned Owl in the woods. Brought it home and raised it to maturity. Kept it tethered in a tree. Blue Jays are natural enemies. They'd fly by and pluck at the owl's eyes. I couldn't handle that and eventually let the owl go.

Hawkowls are common in our moose camp. Buddy wears a knit hat with a long tassel. Many times the owls have made passes at it. First was while he had his head tilted to the side, looking through a spotter. He saw his image blur and the tassel get tagged.

Years ago I was deer hunting in a tree stand. Had an orange hat on. Towards dusk I looked to the south and caught sight of an owl gliding my direction from a distance. Kept an eye on it and finally it dawned on me it was coming for that orange hat thinking it might be a squirrel. At about 35 yards I started waving my arms and jumping around hoping there weren't any deer watching. The owl veered off and left, I still keep a close eye out when hunting near dusk.

Around 15 years ago I was elk hunting, stopped in the trees at the edge of a little park. I'd been standing there for at least five minutes and all of a sudden a grouse busted out or the grass about ten yards in front of me. Just a split second later a big hawk swooped down and almost nailed the grouse.

Was sitting in a tripod deer stand and as it started getting dark heard a swoosh, swoosh. Looked up and a great horned owl was trying to light on my head. I was scared [bleep] and he was embarrassed, flew over to the next tree top twenty feet away to survey the field to my left and refused to look back my way.

Owls are awesome!!

I was sitting on a Stump when hunting squirrels one day I saw something out of the corner of my eye and turned my head to see and there was a very large Great Horned Owl feet out getting ready to land on my head, I never knew that birds had air brakes......

We had a bunch of owls staying close to our hunting cabin for a couple of years. When we stayed all night for a shakedown before deer season, we found out why. There was a group of flying squirrels living in the ceiling. They had found a way to get inside and we could hear them leaving late at night and coming back right before daylight.

Dayom.

Great stories guys.

We have some here in the high desert - they are tough on all sorts of game, including road runners. I enjoy them, but am trying to figure out how to persuade one particular specimen to move along.

Under the tall canopy at one end of my garage I installed a couple of flood lights. Under one of those I have narrow workbench along the wall holding a big vise, some grinding/polishing wheels and other such stuff.

A well fed owl is spending a lot of time perching on that light fixture after dark - has taken to dropping gobs of messy owl poop plus indigestibles on that equipment underneath. Hope I can be smarter than the owl and we can have a peaceful agreement.

I just wanted to hear the thing again. Not feel it...

I remember taking apart owl pellets in biology and putting mouse skeletons back together from them.

Cool birds. They feature prominently in a lot of religions.

A couple of years back we had a nesting pair in the area. They brought a fledgling over to the dog pool in the backyard to show it how to drink and bathe. Wife saw it early one morning. I just got to see them sitting on the fence.

Have had a lot of owl experiences over the years. One might say they're my favorite bird.