Immediately after, as if in response, a similar but slightly different-pitched HOOT echoed from another direction.
Then came two more, then three…
In an instant, at least five or six different owl calls—some low, some high, some short, some long—rose and fell throughout the surrounding mountains, like a relay of signals in the dead of night!
Some of the sounds were close, seeming to come from the canopy of a nearby tree.
Others were distant, echoing from a mountain pass or the far end of a creek valley.
They called back and forth to one another, filled with a strange, indescribable rhythm of communication.
Even more shockingly, after a brief exchange, the calls seemed to reach some sort of consensus. One by one, they began moving rapidly westward and away!
The soft WHOOSH of wings beating against the air was exceptionally clear in the quiet night sky.
It was the sound of multiple nocturnal birds of prey moving in unison!
This… this…
