Once More: Only. In. Alaska.

So here I am, doing some stuff (wow, that was descriptive) and I look out the window after seeing some motion outside and I figure "Oh, it's a raven, landing on the streetlight..." But then I really looked. And even though I have seen some big ravens in my time so far up here, I have not seen many as big as this bird was. And the body shape is wrong for a raven. And I realize: it is an owl. One that is at least as big as my head and neck combined. Maybe even a bit bigger, but it was difficult to tell since it was "fluffed up" to help deal with the rain going on. And so I sit. Watching from inside for awhile. As a smaller bird (Robin perhaps? Starling maybe?) keeps flying close in by the owl, attempting to drive it off, lure it away, what-have-you. There are some nests nearby so it might have been a "parent bird". But the owl was having none of it. It just sat there, atop the streetlight. Watching. Waiting. Because of the glare from lights inside I could not get a really good look at it so I went on outside. And as I walked up towards the streetlight, the owl would occasionally turn and glare at me. But then it would go back to just sitting. I got up to about a dozen feet away from it, plus or minus the distance of it's elevation on the streetlight (about 8 feet up). The little bird kept swooping and chirping. The owl sat silent. After a little bit I started to walk away and that is when it (the owl) decided to move. It opened it's wings and dropped down, gliding past me and further along into the plaza. As it swooped I suspect that, if I had foolishly stretched out my arm, I would have easily been able to touch it's wing as it went by. Yeah. That close. I am virtually certain that the species was a Horned Owl of some type. With the lighting level (it was 11pm local time) it was a bit difficult to get good details. And sadly I did not have my camera. Anyway, after it swooped I looked back towards where it had been and experienced another "only in AK at this time of year" sort of moment. Because in the mist, at 11pm-ish, there was a rainbow visible.

So. Darn. Cool.

All for now. More later.