Backstory: Our house is on the edge of an Old Florida natural park. Its dense with trees and walking paths and has a frizbee golf course and a little play area. Its lovely. BUT, with so much development downtown, the downtown crime has been squished up into our neighborhood like toothpaste so as not to bother all the rich people. In the political gameshow of the city, we've won parting gifts of
*two middle aged, frizzy haired prostitutes who keep returning no matter how many times the cops pick them up (I guess that's not the only people picking them up). They apparently have found friendship and a home here. Aww.
*Random homeless guys living in the underbrush of the park. They're ok since they keep to themselves. Well, unless they start a fire in the dry season.
*Crackheads. Or, as I like to call them, the zombie contingent. They stumble around the park like extras from Shaun of the Dead or 28 Days Later, making the park uninhabitable by the living until the afternoon when the potheads come out to play frizbee golf.
*and most recently, gang activity. I haven't actually seen any gang activity, but they've tagged all the signs in the neighborhood.
So when I heard hooting sounds loud and close by our windows, I was sure it was some human messing around and I got MAD. Kent got annoyed because he was ready to sleep.
"Will you please let me sleep? Its just owls."
"Listen to that." I yelled. "Those are the fakest owl calls I ever heard. What owl really says, hoo hoo? Damn gangsters should do calls they're good at like barking or meowing."
"Meowing? Are gangsters good at meowing?"
"You know what I mean. Sounds that really happen in a neighborhood."
So I turned on all the outside lights and flashed my flashlight out the window, at which point the sounds got really loud with a weird growly sound interposed underneath. So I was really sure it was gangsters and they could see me in the windows until I looked up into our pine tree and saw.....huge wings flitting from one branch to the other. Then another pair of huge wings follow.
Kent and I run outside to check it out. We probably saw this guy and he looked like this
I feel much better about our neighborhood. I love that we have loud mating owls in our trees. The same trees that house giant woodpeckers, scrub and blue jays, cardinals, and robins. Of course, we've also got snakes, rats, humongous skinks, raccoons, and these weird little beetles that like to play dead in our driveway and then waddle away when they think we're not looking. But its neat to live in the middle of a city and have a bit of nature with us. Maybe that's why the crackheads love our neighborhood, too. And really, who can blame them?
