My wife and I were driving home one evening when a large owl flew into our headlight beams several yards in front of the car. It was big enough and close enough that my wife, who was driving, hit the brakes hard enough to almost stop the car. Almost immediately, three deer jumped across the road at about where the car would have been had we not slowed down. I've hit two deer in the last ten years and I was extremely thankful that our encounter with the owl prevented hitting a third.

We subsequently learned that owls often follow herds of deer at night because the deer's movement through the underbrush flushes mice and other small animals on which the owls feed.