Whooo are you? There's an owl in your neighborhood

Picture this: You're hiking through a forest just as the sun slips down behind the trees. Songbirds and squirrels have fallen silent, bedding down for the night. Bats have not yet emerged. All is still except for the crunch of your boots on the dirt path. Suddenly, something above you calls out.

Hoo! Hoo-oo-oo-oo! Hoo! Hoo!

You look up just in time to see a feathered figure glide from one tree to another, its six-foot wings spread wide. Perching on a branch, the bird blends with the tree trunk, almost disappearing from view.

You have just seen an owl – a sight that owlers enjoy.

Children's writer Jane Yolen introduced readers to the nocturnal activity of "owling" with her beloved picture book "Owl Moon."

In it, a girl and her father take a nighttime walk through a New England forest near their farm. "Pa" imitates the call of a great-horned owl, and the enormous bird hoots back. Then it appears. The girl is awestruck.

Is such a thing possible? Can you really call owls to you?

Yes, says Steve Gordon, who leads expeditions for the Lane County Audubon Society in Oregon. He explains that if you can imitate an owl's cry, even roughly, it will answer. "When you hear the call, just call back," he says.

Before you embark on your quest to see who gives a hoot, you'll need a few items.

First, make sure you bring a grown-up. And wear sturdy, closed-toed shoes or boots. You'll be walking on unfamiliar ground in the dark. Second, bring a working flashlight or headlamp. Finally, you might want to bring along a small, lightweight tape recorder. Then you can record and play back the sounds of the owls you discover!

Many owls are nocturnal. This means they're active from dusk until dawn. While you're winding down from your day, some owls are just waking up and leaving their nests to talk with one another. This is the best time to spot them in the wild. Later on, they're busy hunting – an activity that demands absolute concentration – and silence.

"You can also go out before dawn," says Mr. Gordon. "Nocturnal owls are often active in the last couple of hours before [daylight]."

Maybe you live in the country, with acres of forest around you. Or possibly you live in a suburban area with just a few trees in your backyard. Either way, you probably have owls for neighbors.

Screech owls and barn owls are cavity nesters; they view a hole in a tree as Home, Sweet Home. Larger birds, such as great horned owls, take over abandoned crow and hawk nests in tall trees.

All owls leave hints as to their location. It's up to you to look for the clues! Often, you'll spot whitish streaks on a tree trunk or on the ground beneath a high limb. These streaks are "mutes" (or bird poop), left by an owl that regards the tree as his favorite hangout.

Owls also make pellets. Anyone who's read Jane Hammerslough's kids' science book, "Owl Puke," knows that owls usually swallow their food whole.

However, they can't digest certain parts of mammals and small birds. Their stomach creates a pellet with the sharp bones of the prey on the inside and the soft fur or feathers on the outside. Soon after eating, owls cough up a pellet, which ends up on the ground. Owl pellets are about 1-1/2 inches long and grayish-white or black. If you find one, you'll know that an owl is near. (See sidebar on next page to learn how to dissect an owl pellet.)

'Tigers' in the trees

Ready to go owling? Several species of owls easily adapt to rural or suburban environments.

The first is the great horned owl. These birds are sometimes called "tigers with wings" because they're fierce hunters. They weigh between three and five pounds and stand about two feet tall, with two distinctive feathered "horns" on top of their heads.

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