In the US a garden is a space/place where you grow veggies. I don't have a garden as such, I have a front yard and a backyard. We share a 10 acre or so woodland with 2 neighbors either side of us with farmland all around us. Every year around this time we're hosts to a pair of Great-horned Owls. They may be around all year for all I know but around now is the time we know they're around due to them proclaiming their territory. They're enormous beasts, 18-24 inches tall with piercing eyes and a deep hoo hoo hoo sound. Each evening as the sun is setting they start their hooting mostly just the one but sometimes both of them. Most times they are down the bottom of the yard in the 100ft ivy covered trees and although I'd love to get a picture of one I haven't managed it yet. This evening around 4:30 I heard one in my neighbors yard and coming inside to grab my bins I found him right on the tree line to the West, all I could see was a silhouette against the setting sun. A little later I looked out and it had moved into my yard and although it was still a silhouette I watched it pooping and preening and what appeared to be regurgitating a pellet. I'm going to see if I can find it in the morning. I've tried several times to get a picture but they always spot me coming and fly off into the field. I missed my golden opportunity around 2 am one morning when I heard him as I got up to go for a pee. He was out front on a bare branch about 25 yards away. If I had gone downstairs, got my tripod, camera and flash, taken everything up into the bathroom, set it all up, quietly slid the window open, manually focussed all in the darkness I might have got a shot. Nah! Screw that I went back to bed.
Great-horned Owl
Great-horned Owl