DECATUR - Cold, wet and windy weather kept the Illinois Raptor Center's annual Owl Prowl participants from their anticipated walk through the woods, but it didn't stop them from meeting some local owls and learning about them.

"It's so cold and windy, I don't think if we called a barn owl he'd answer us, even if he was lying wounded at our feet," program director Jacques Nuzzo said jokingly.

Instead of a hike, those who attended sat in a lean-to shelter out of the wind and met the captive owls that are the center's "staff," as Nuzzo described them, including Mulder and Scully, a pair of screech owls - who actually whistle rather than screech - Octavius, the barred owl, Yeti the snowy owl and the star of the show, Banshee the barn owl.

Banshee obligingly demonstrated several typical owl behaviors by flying from the fist of Jane Seitz, the executive director of the center, to Nuzzo's fist, screeching, and then eating a dead mouse whole. Well, almost whole.

"We've found that if we eviscerate the mouse first, he'll swallow it whole," Nuzzo said. "If we don't, he rips the head off."

That's exactly what Banshee did, drawing giggling "ewwws" from some of the children present.

Barn owls, Nuzzo said, are likely the real cause of ghost stories, since owls fly silently and barn owls are white underneath, so a person in an abandoned house or cemetery - favorite barn owl nesting sites - would likely see a white, silent shape fly overhead and possibly hear the screech, which can be a scary sound. Banshee, meanwhile, swallowed the mouse, all but the tail, and stood on Seitz's fist with the tail hanging out of his beak, eyes closed in bliss.

Larry and Marsha Donnel of Decatur attended the Owl Prowl on Friday because they developed an interest in bird-watching after their children grew up and moved out, Larry Donnel said.

"We take walks at Rock Springs Center and out in the woods, partly for our health," he said, "but also for the enjoyment."

They were slightly disappointed the hike was called off on Friday due to weather, but Nuzzo told the participants that weather for the second day of the Owl Prowl, today at 6:30 p.m., is forecast to be much milder and the hike will take place.

Valerie Wells can be reached at vwells@ herald-review.com or 421-7982.