Earlier this month I saw something interesting.

We were at Tel Arad in Israel and were having a conversation while standing around the well in the Canaanite city area.

We were talking about how deep the well was (52 feet) and how they gathered water and transported it up to the fortress.

We were looking down into the well and noticed that pigeons were roosting among the casing stones.

I decided to take a few pictures of them. I really like the color of these pigeons. It is nice to see a little variety in color instead of the typical gray ones.

See Doves of Pigeons? for more about pigeons in Israel.

We were all taking pictures down into the well and were talking about whether anybody had dropped things into the well. I decided that since I had my binoculars with me that I would look down into the well and see what I could see.

I was really surprised with what I saw.

Looking with my binoculars I saw a parliament of owls sleeping together in the bottom of the dark well.

Since I then knew where they were I was able to zoom in on them with my camera and take a picture.

I was surprised that the picture turned out as well as it did. The owls were about 50 feet away from the camera and in the dark.

The owls are barn owls (Tyto alba). I did a little checking and found out that barn owls are found almost everywhere in the world.

Here is a picture of a barn owl closer to home.

I used this picture in my Birds and Bees post.

The barn owls are great birds to have in an orchard as they help keep down the rodent population.

Have you seen an owl in an unlikely place?

Steven