owls and spiders, oh my!

A. and I hiked about two hours' worth of Shingletown Gap last night, until we weren't sure we'd make it back to the car by the time the light faded enough that it was difficult to see our footing. We did make it, though. The sun hadn't even gone down yet, but the woodedness of the area and intermittent clouds did make things a little more difficult for us near the end.

We were slowed down by a flash of large wings through the pines, which A. noticed before I did. Being in the lead helped, I think. A large white/beige owl with a huge round face perched about a hundred feet away from us and began this call that almost sounded like a hiss, with more vocalization near the end of it. It was looking straight at us while it did this, as if accusing us of invading its space. I tried taking a picture of it (I haven't seen how this came out yet, but due to the dimness, I really doubt I got anything much). We stood still for minutes, and it started looking around and continuing to make the hiss-call. Owls are creepy when they look behind themselves without moving their bodies.

Eventually it hopped forward to a closer branch to us. Shortly after that, we took our leave. We looked back about fifty feet down the trail to see it still looking after us, calling its little hiss-call.

I think that's as close as I've ever gotten to a wild owl. Earlier, we'd watched fish dart through the stream and wondered how they got into the little pools of stillness through the fast-running water, blocked by detritus. This stream feeds the Shingletown Watershed near the parking area--upon a Google search, I find this stream is called Roaring Run. During most of the hike, we could hear it, but I wouldn't call it Roaring. Perhaps it does farther up the mountain, though.

I love the fact that Google searches often lead me elsewhere: I just found out that Bellefonte has an old quarry that people use for rock climbing. I may just have to check it out.

Back to that hike, though: early on, we found an old house--mere foundations, mostly, at this point--with a little chimney section. In this, I found a snail. Don't think I've ever seen one of those, either. Later on, we found a bunch of webs that, upon poking my nose into, I realized were built by a tunnel spider. Eventually, upon using my camera to magnify an area we couldn't see very well, we saw the (rather large) yellow spider hiding within. Again, I don't think I'd ever seen a tunnel spider before.

In all, an excellent hike.

In home news, and on the subject of spiders, I found one of my two pet bathroom spiders hanging from me when I entered the bathroom this morning, having been kicked out of the other one's web the night before (but not eaten, as another unfortunate spider was. nothing like cannibalism in your bathroom to greet you in the morning). I suspect this one was doing something in the open doorway that I pushed through as I entered. I put it onto the floor by its dragline, and it skittered under the sink as fast as it could go. Guess I scare things that much smaller than me.