A suburban man has lived in his home for dozens of years, and just loves his wooded back yard and the neighbors' wooded yards.
Over the years he's put up bird feeders and bird houses, fed the squirrels, put up a butterfly garden, and studied books on
bird calls and how to recognize species of birds. His wife never quite understood his passion.
He heard what he thought must be an owl one evening as he stood on his back deck.
Hmmm, he wondered, "I wonder if I can call to that owl, and get a returned response."
So the man started to make a hooting sound...."Hoot, hoot" he said. "Hoot, hoot, hooooooot".
No answer. One more try. "Hoot, hoot, hooooooot".
Then he heard, clearly, no mistaking it, an owl had believed it was hearing an owl, the man heard from the woods a responding "Hoot, hoot"
WOW !! This is cool ! The man got into the yard, looking into the trees, saying " Hoot, hoot, hoooooot"
And again, an owl returned a "Hoot, hoot".
After a few more calls, the man went inside "Esther, you wouldn't believe it! I had an owl responding to my calls! I've never had this much success with an animal.
It was the coolest thing."
The next night, the man was hoping the owl might be out again, and went around to various spots in his yard, calling "Hoot, hoot".
Soon enough the owl returned his call, "Hoot, hoot". The man thought this might be mating season, or maybe a hunting call.
For the next half hour, he made his calls as he looked into the trees for the owl, and nearly every time got a response.
This was so fantastic, he went into his back yard and front yard every evening around dusk for the entire week, making calls, sometimes modifying the call, maybe
making a sound like "Hoot, hoooot, hoot" one time, and "Hooooot hoot hoot hoot" the next time. It was incredible how he was conecting with nature.
At the end of the week, he asked his wife to pick up some bird seed when she went to the store on Saturday.
At the store, Esther saw one of her longtime neighbor friends, Mabel from a few doors down. They chatted about the whether, the church group they joined, then Esther told
Mabel about how her husband had been so excited that week to be calling and almost talking to an owl, like having an owl-to-man conversation.
Mabel said, "That's interesting, my husband has been talking to an owl every evening this past week too.........."
