Not a Sound

Every once-in-a-while I will see a small owl sitting on our back yard fence when I let the dogs out at night. Tonight I saw two of them sitting on the sidewalk/ramp rail at church when I was doing my security walk. When I saw them, I stopped to watch them and they seemed to watch me, too. Finally I walked up for a closer view and one of them let me get within 6 feet before he took off. It wasn't until a few seconds later that I noticed what I had just missed...sound. When they flew, there was absolutely no sound, and one of them flew just 3-4 feet over my head.

I checked another couple doors and then walked back under the tree where I thought one of them had landed. Sure enough, there he was looking at me again. We watched each other for a while, me staring up, him making little triangle movements with his head staring down at me. To my surprise, he jumped/flew to a branch closer to me, and finally made his way to a branch straight over my head. He was definitely a very curious little owl.

Finally he hopped to another branch and looked out toward the playground area where the second owl had flown. When I stepped around to get a better view, he took off for the trees in the playground and was gone. Again, not a sound.