Desert Horses

Welcome to my horse blog, Desert Horses. We live in the desert southwest, near Palm Springs, CA, but board our horses up in our local mountains where it is cooler in the summer. I have 4 horses, all rescues. Here is the ranch up the mountains where the horses stay.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Whhhhooooooooooo's there???


I awoke in the middle of the night last night to the "whoo, whoo, whoo" of an owl in our cottonwood tree. We have a 30 year old tree that hubby bought a couple of years after we bought our house and over the last 35 years, we've had a family of orioles live in it and various owls stop by overnight or over the course of a few nights. We always welcome the owls as they clean out the critters in the neighborhood. A few years ago, we had a huge infestation of tree rats (our neighbors on both sides all have grapefruit trees) and one time, while I was talking on the phone with a friend, I observed a tree rat walking across the street, from the neighbor's yard to OUR YARD by using the telephone wires! ACK!!! Fortunately, now that we have 3 outdoor cats, our critter problem is solved, but I have no idea what is going on with "critters" in the neighborhood. At least they stay OUT of our yard! So, having an owl around is a good thing!!! This owl is at the Living Desert Reserve in Palm Desert, CA. There was another owl in the enclosure and she was on a nest on the ground!

2 comments:

pinkglitterfae said...

I love owls, and would love to have one living in my area...although I feed the song birds so maybe that wouldn't be a good thing, lol!
what is a tree rat? Is it an actual rat?

Sage said...

I love owls, too. They are so good to get rid of the unwanted mice & rats. I hear one around here once in a while, and we had one that lived in our cottonwood tree in town before we moved where we can have the ponies. I love cottonwood trees too. They grow fast and provide good shade, and horses can eat their leaves in fall. Thanks for thinking of me and Star, the blind horse.