Barred Owl

I was out for a run with our whippet Patriot and just flushed a barred owl from its perch just as we were coming to the end of the run near our back gate.  I stopped and watched for a while as the owl just flew a very short distance to a nearby beech tree.  It alternated looking directly at me and turning its head 180 degrees around.  I got a nice look for about 5 minutes.  Barred owls have a lot of signficance for me.  I see and hear them a lot and especially around significant events such as deaths.  I was thinking a lot of the protection of wildlife in the area today since  I was looking into the alteration of some beaver dams nearby by humans, about the recent lifting of the bobcat quota (saw a bobcat the same day), and the protection of a nearby 4 wheel drive road.  [ I saw someone who looked like they might be buying the land at the start of the run.]  It's certainly easy to project significance on these events.  On the other hand, some seem very clearly to be tied into, for lack of a better world, the spirit world.