Yes, I know. It's a horrible sound. I heard it once in Illinois when I was about 10 years old, and I've never forgotten it. I was at my aunt's and uncle's house in Barrington (an outer suburb of Chicago), and one afternoon my cousin and I saw a red-tailed hawk which had caught a small cottontail rabbit and had it pinned on the ground in their back yard.

The raptor had already commenced skinning and consuming its prey because we could see the pink flesh and blood. But then the rabbit suddenly screamed in obvious pain and we realized to our amazement and horror that the hawk was literally eating the animal while it was still alive. We ran inside and got my uncle and he went outside, whereupon the hawk then flew away with the rabbit still in its talons. That was nature up close and personal, and that triggered my fascination with birds of prey.

In contrast to hawks, an owl's talons can apply about 500 ft. lbs. of pressure with its grip, which is more than enough to pierce vital organs of their prey and kill it pretty quickly. Once its prey is dead, a barn owl will generally swallow it whole, head first. (Warning: While that linked video's not gory, it's also not for the squeamish.) Hawks and eagles don't do that.

We'd see jackrabbits on occasion in open areas, but only very rarely in residential communities. The most common wildlife I'd see in Pasadena were squirrels, opossums, coyotes and raccoons. And for some reason we always had a lot of skunks in the neighborhood; you'd see them in the late afternoon and evening, usually rooting around the flower beds in people's yards, looking for grubs. And we did have to watch out for rattlesnakes.

Up the road in Altadena near the boundary of Angeles National Forest, residents also have to cope with deer, bobcats, black bears and the occasional mountain lion which will wander into the community. In my brother's neighborhood in Glendora, if you don't keep your trash cans sealed properly, the bears will find their way in and you'll have a big mess to clean up in the morning.

For a number of years, my grandparents had a pair of great horned owls that roosted in the pine tree in their front yard. They had a problem with bats one time when I was a teenager; the animals found an opening somewhere and took up residence in the attic. City Vector Control found the problem spot and sealed it one early evening after the bats awoke and took off to feed, and that was that.

Still, for all their inconveniences, I'd much rather cope with wildlife than have to make do without them.

And unlike many owls, which are generally nocturnal, the Pueo is most often active during daylight hours so it's not uncommon to see them soaring over the fields outside Hilo, hunting for rodents. It's actually a subspecies of the short-eared owl, which is found throughout the world.

We also have the barn owl, which was first introduced to the islands in 1958 as a means to control rodents on sugar plantation lands. It's easily distinguishable from the native Pueo due to its lighter plumage and larger size. Its numbers have also increased dramatically over the six decades since introduction.

The barn owl's presence in Hawaii is an example of good intentions gone awry, as they have supplanted the Pueo and the 'Io (Hawaiian Hawk) as an apex predator. Further, they have greatly strayed from their traditional diet of rodents and other small mammals, and have instead developed a particular taste for vulnerable native ground-nesting seabirds such as the Hawaiian petrel and Newell's shearwater.

The State Dept. of Agriculture and the Dept. of Land & Natural Resources is presently working on a plan in conjunction with federal agencies to eliminate the barn owl as an invasive species, or at least reduce its numbers significantly.

As the old saying goes, when seconds count the police are just minutes away.

But that said, our nation will be at tremendous risk if / when we allow our political differences to reach a point where we wish that physical harm or even death would be visited upon our opponents. We cannot and should not deny one another's humanity.

That's a very slippery slope which is often impossible to re-ascend, once a country commences the slide. And while we're not there yet, we're clearly approaching the fence and warning signs.

And in that regard, far-right Republicans ought to pause and consider the admonition offered by Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, that the fiercest foes in battle are often those persons who first did their very best to avoid such a confrontation.

Now, it's possible that if he had kept his mouth shut, not tried to get people to lean on Comey, stayed off Twitter, he might not now, some 145 days into his presidency, be reportedly under investigation for obstruction.

I think the people who must really be feeling their bowels rumbling are Republicans who may be facing the possibility of a Mueller report that will leave no doubt that Trump needs to be impeached.  McConnell must be freaking out trying to figure out some weird parliamentary procedure that will allow him to avoid an impeachment trial in the Senate.

If it weren't for the reality that this poor excuse for a human being, and his minions, seem to be systematically destroying the country, I'd say that this couldn't happen to a better person.