Western Screech-owl

Notes:

I came out of our house one day, and in the crab-apple tree just off the corner of our house, there was this owl sitting there. We watched it for quite some time. It stared back, and we stared back and took some pictures. It even coughed up a pellet. My dad picked the pellet up and tried to find something in it, but he thinks it was mostly insect exoskeletons. That summer, we actually saw a few of these owls. One swooped from our roof, out to a tree at the edge of the yard, and then even on to the roof of our parked car and then it flew away. My grandpa saw several around the house (powerpole, nearby tree) one night and they were calling to each other, so we were wondering if there was a nest nearby and this was the family of owls beginning to learn how to hunt on their own. All this in an older neighborhood just outside of the downtown core. Pretty cool to see owls in the middle of the city....