I had never seen an owl in the wild, then, one day I was standing near the edge of a pond, the area popular with bird watchers. Off in the distance, sitting in a tree along the pond, seemed something too big to be any of the birds I had been watching. "Is that a...?" Then, it took off, flew towards me! I froze. It landed in a branch next to me. We kept company until it finally saw something snack-worthy on the ground, swooped down, then flew off with its catch.