Walking along the trail, we both heard a soft call and stopped — simultaneously intrigued and excited. A brief silence, then the call was repeated: an owl. Off trail, there were faint semi-paths through the trees we could follow. Half an hour of slow scanning, listening, and searching, but to no avail. Back to the trail we went, while we could still find it, and on with our walk. Finally, on our way back, we were lucky — an owl was perched just beside the trunk. Nothing more than an unexpected upright form rising from a horizontal branch.