Angry Monkeys

Yes, I know; it is a very weird title for a blog post, but bear with me.

Within the last six months or so, we have had the pleasure of having at least two owls living in our area, and we can hear them hooting to each other at night (or, sometimes in the late afternoon, which is odd). Well, very early this morning, I woke up and was waiting for sleep to claim me again before the alarm went off, when I realized one of the owls was in our dogwood tree less than ten feet from my window and was calling to his partner (who was probably across the street, possibly closer to the neighborhood behind us, from the sound of it). It is a little creepy to hear the owl that close, but they are cool birds. Anyway, the calling went on, and I was about to drift back to sleep when something broke lose. What had started off as gentle calls suddenly erupted into frenzied screams and barking that sounded like I had stumbled into a forest filled with angry monkeys at each other's throats. And all of this was less than ten feet away from my head. And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped after a moment. A bit hair-raising, to say the least. I have absolutely no clue what was going on, but perhaps the owls were having a lovers' quarrel or one of them got too close to a nest. Still, it was an interesting thing that happened this morning.