There are no photos of the subjects of this post – just the story of a delightful encounter.
Midnight. I’m asleep in my RV near Elephant Butte Lake when I hear owls. Not the soft hoo-hoo-hoo that I’ve heard elsewhere, but a raucous hoohoo-hoo-hoo. And a response that overlapped it. Quite the cacophony.
Looking out the window I could just see the silhouettes of two very big owls on the shelter roof – maybe 12 or 14 feet from where I sleep over the cab. They stayed about 15 minutes, very noisy, and awkwardly balanced on the metal roof.
I had to look up the call to be sure of their identity – Great Horned owls. It’s closest to the territorial hooting at this link. This was definitely the highlight of my trip.

I was in the part of the RV over the cab. They were on the top of the shelter.
That is not something you will forget, ever. My owl story: Bob and I were camping in a backcountry site at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore when we were awakened in the middle of the night to what sounded like someone being murdered. It was “only” owls. And lots of them.
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Good story!
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To me, there’s something mysterious and magical about the hooting of owls. At my sister’s place in SoCal, I’d occasionally hear them. One memorable night there were three doing their territorial hooting from different directions. I could see the silhouette of one perched atop the gazebo in the yard. Indeed, never to be forgotten!
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