Watching for Snowy Owls

I just saw an article about record number of Snowy Owls visiting the lower 48 this year and it reminded me about our best family owl stories. We periodically see owls in our area; in fact, I saw one a couple hundred feet from our house just last week. By the way, I think they look at a distance like a cat sitting in a tree, and with that aside here are my favorite owl stories:

My mother and father-in-law were visiting a couple of years ago, and she was sitting on our back deck in the middle of the day reading the final installment of Harry Potter, owls and all (were there owls in book 7? I don't remember). The deck in the summer is somewhat hidden by the trees that shade it, and as she read about Harry, she heard a noise and falling clatter and looked up startled to see an owl had just landed on the deck at her feet. The owl, also startled, apparently had not dropped in to listen to a Hedwig reading and immediately took off for more private locals. Funny coincidence.

A month or so ago, we got a copy of the final movie installment of Harry Potter. I think we picked it up in the morning, planning to watch it that night. But, right on cue, as the afternoon light waned, we looked into the back yard just in time to see what looked like a big cat sitting in our backyard pine tree.  Do owls know when you're reading or watching Harry Potter? In our five years in Colorado, we have seen an owl on our "property" only twice that we know of: both times we were reading about or about to watch Harry Potter.

So, where does this all lead? I would really like to see a snowy owl up close (two feet tall is a big bird), so I'm thinking of going out and buying a big poster of Hedwig. It just might work.