Mike in the Wild

There's no more enchanting sound in nature than the nighttime hooting of great horned owls.  And most of us living in North America are fortunate to hear them, as the birds dwell almost everywhere on the continent.  However I was recently surprised to discover that the shrieking skeeeets  I was hearing nightly this summer in Prescott were also the vocalizations of these beautiful birds.  In fact I met the two screamers early in the season, just as monsoon clouds started gathering for the first time on a humid evening shortly before sunset.  I had hiked to a neighborhood trailhead that leads into Prescott National Forest to get a better view of the menacing skies from a higher vantage point.   Intimidating flashes of lighting and bursts of thunder emanating from dark clouds eventually cut my walk short.  But just before I left the trail, two caterwauling birds drew my attention.   I quicky spotted them roosting atop adjacent juniper trees near homes lining the forest border.  The bi