When we first moved to Victorville the home was on the very edge of a new development. It made for interesting desert wildlife encounters...weird bugs, all sorts of stuff. As it got dark I could hear a bird I didn't recognize. I knew the direction it was coming from but it always started up just as it was getting too dark to see. I'd try to mimic the call and got pretty good at it, a couple of times I had my girlfriend out with me on the porch and I got the bird to come closer, but even when it was at it's closest it was just outside of the reach of the street lights. Finally, the bird started up earlier than usual one night and there was enough light to see it with binoculars - it was a burrowing owl. It was pretty neat to have one inhabiting a hole not very far from us. The bird stuck around that winter and left at some point. Years went by and the bird never came back. Some more houses were built but it's spot was still there, yet I never heard the call again. 7 years later and with only a month or two left before we were set to move away, I was looking out a 2nd story window at house across the street one night and noticed something moving on the sidewalk leading to their door. It was a burrowing owl chasing after bugs, I presume, right up next to their porch. I found it ironic how seeing the first one took so much effort, then so much later one walks right up to the neighbour's front door and poses for a while.
While living in Fontana I got a horned owl take interest in me and inch closer by mimicking it's call ("shhhhhhhhhhhhhhht") at our home. Heard two of them fighting in trees in our backyard, with the winner triumphantly hooting up a storm before leaving. I even got one to "buzz" me when I called to it while it was flying around in a field at daybreak while I was doing some photography. Owls, on the whole, are really up there for me since getting a good look at one is so difficult. I guess that makes me a "ticker".
