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b"It's Halloween week! Join us this week for an episode about spooky, spooky owls...including the chickcharnie and the owlman.\\n\\nI've unlocked a few Patreon episodes as a Halloween treat. Click through and you can listen on your browser:\\n\\nThe Hazelworm\\n\\nVAMPIRE BIRDS\\n\\nSee-through animals\\n\\nAnd a reminder that my fantasy novel Skytown is available now in ebook and paperback. Buy many copies!\\n\\nThe Eurasian eagle owl will murder you without remorse and look fabulous doing it:\\n\\n\\n\\nThe Eastern screech owl is tiny but has a loud, creepy call:\\n\\n\\n\\nThe barn owl is sometimes called the ghost owl FOR OBVIOUS REASONS:\\n\\n\\n\\nA great horned owl:\\n\\n\\n\\nFurther reading:\\n\\nThe Telltale Lilac Bush and Other West Virginia Ghost Tales by Ruth Ann Musick\\n\\nShow transcript:\\n\\nWelcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I\\u2019m your host, Kate Shaw.\\n\\nIt\\u2019s finally Halloween week, my favorite week of the year! Let\\u2019s learn about another animal frequently associated with Halloween spookiness, the owl!\\n\\nFirst, though, a reminder that if you want a Strange Animals sticker, always feel free to contact me and ask for one. You can email me at strangeanimalspodcast@gmail.com or contact me through social media. If you\\u2019ve got an extra dollar or two a month just lying around, you can support the podcast on Patreon and get access to twice-monthly bonus episodes. And if you want to read a fun book that actually has very little to do with animals, my novel Skytown is now out in both paperback and ebook. I\\u2019ll put a link in the show notes for both my book\\u2019s Goodreads page and to the Patreon page. Not everyone knows what Patreon is, so briefly, it\\u2019s just a site where you can set up recurring monthly donations and in return get patron rewards.\\n\\nI have unlocked two more patreon bonus episodes for anyone to listen to. I\\u2019ll put a link to them in the show notes too. You can click on the links and listen via your browser, without needing a Patreon login.\\n\\nNow, with housekeeping out of the way, on to the owl episode!\\n\\nLike bats, owls are mostly nocturnal animals and that makes many people afraid of them. They also look kind of weird, can sound really creepy, and fly so silently that they\\u2019re like ghosts. But we\\u2019re going to start this week\\u2019s episode off with an owl-like mystery animal in a place you might not expect.\\n\\nThe Bahamas is a country made up of over 700 islands, many of them tiny, located roughly between the Florida peninsula and Cuba. These days it\\u2019s famous for sunny beaches and warm waters. Tourism is a big part of its economy and lots of people take cruises to the Bahamas. But between about 500 years ago and 200 years ago, the Bahamas was a terrible place. The native people of the area, called the Lucayan, were enslaved by the Spanish and forced to work on plantations under horrific conditions. Most of them died. The British took over the islands around the mid-17th century, bringing enslaved people from Africa to work the plantations. Also during this time, pirates treated the area as a haven, leading eventually to one really good Pirates of the Caribbean movie and a lot of terrible sequels, although this is perhaps a little off topic. In 1807 the British came to their senses and abolished the slave trade, although they didn\\u2019t actually abolish slavery until 1834. British ships sometimes attacked slave ships and rescued the captives on board. Many of the captive people were brought to the Bahamas, where they made new homes. Freed and escaped slaves made their way to the Bahamas too, where they could live in relative peace.\\n\\nThe largest of the islands that makes up the Bahamas is called Andros Island, although it\\u2019s technically a collection of three main islands and some smaller ones that are all quite close together, protected by a barrier reef. It\\u2019s the only island in the Bahamas with a freshwater river, and naturally there are many animals found on Andros Island that live nowhere else. There used to be even more native animals,"