I'm nearly certain it's a barred owl.  His eyes were dark. The flash went off, and his eyes look mostly red to me (like a lot of my cat pictures) 

Spartycats, great photo, and one that you don't get a chance to take every day!

We hear owls making really strange sounds in the woods at night. One call starts up high and then trails, curling, down to a low range, sort of eeoo-aaaaaaahhhhhaha.

Catwoods, we have a kind of owl here (called a screech owl) that makes a sound somewhat like you have described.  Absolutely bone-chilling, especially when you hear it in the otherwise dead silence of 3am!

Spartycats, what an awesome picture of the owl.  Absolutely magnificant! 
Sandi, I can't get over how at home that deer appears to be in you backyard, WOW!

We were surrounded by severe weather here in southern WI this evening.  Although the sky looked very threatening at times, none of the storms came where I live.  (We didn't even get a drop of rain.)




The surrounding storms did, however, produce some amazing sunsets:






What no camera could capture, however, was the amazing quality of the light at the time the last two pictures were taken.  The very air seemed to glow red-orange!  It was like standing in flames, without the heat.

The strange, rounded cotton-ball-like clouds in the last picture are called mammatocumulus.  They are associated with severe thunderstorms, but are usually seen when the worst of the storms have passed.

http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/cld/cldtyp/oth/mm.rxml

ETA:  I've now replaced the second picture, changing to a version with a slightly longer exposure, which I decided I liked better for more emphasis on the quality of the light.  (Although it's not as sharp because I was working with a comparatively low light level, and wasn't using a tripod.  I usually take several versions of the same shot, especially when taking photos under unusual conditions, and see which one I like better.)

Wow, catbird, that looks like the end of the world in that last pic!  Very beautiful though.  Love that sunset.

That does look like a barred owl if it's eyes are dark, Spartycats.  They can be really mean if you get near their nests - keep an eye on that one if you walk by it again!

Yeah, seriously -- I thought you had posted pictures of a forest fire. That's really amazing! I've never seen light so red, but I guess our storms haven't been as severe up here. I have seen the mammatocumulus clouds and that lovely green light in the first picture. Scary.

Yikes catbird!  That weather would scare me just about as much as our recent visit from a bear!  We dont get weather like that here so thunderstorms and lightening, etc scare the heck out of me!