Susan and Todd Voller love the birds that come to visit their treed lot on South Hamilton Street in Powell. Most of them, anyway.

Wednesday morning they had a surprise — a great horned owl perched in a tree in the backyard, just in time for Thanksgiving. Its huge, intimidating yellow eyes were trained on the Vollers and their dogs as they spent time in the back doing their usual morning business.

“We came out and it was right there, looking right at us,” Todd said.

Susan makes sure that birds feel welcome in their yard, feeding and making sure they have water year-round. It’s a great way to ensure visitors throughout the year, area bird expert Rob Koelling often says.

Southside Park is adjacent to the house, giving birds plenty of room to forage when not hanging out in the combination of evergreens and hardwoods at the Voller home. It’s also a place where rabbits and squirrels — tasty food sources for an owl — run free.

Great horned owls are a powerful predator, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology says, able to take down birds and mammals larger than they are. Susan worried about her Boston terrier and kept it indoors for the day.

Great horned owls also dine on daintier fare such as tiny scorpions, mice, reptiles and other birds. Here year-round, it’s one of the most common owls in North America, equally at home in deserts, wetlands, forests, grasslands, backyards, cities and almost any other semi-open habitat between the Arctic and the tropics.

The Vollers have had some special species in their yard. Last year they had a leucitic robin that spent time at their feeders. Leucism is a rare condition caused by a genetic mutation that prevents pigment, like melanin, from being deposited on a bird’s plumage.

Susan isn’t fond of one species that has made its home on the property: Eurasian collared-doves. Their plump bodies, small heads with beady eyes, long tails and the narrow black crescent “collar” around the nape of the neck don’t offend her as much as their cat-like growls and pushy mannerisms.

Eurasian collared-doves are larger than native mourning doves (who have a pleasant coo) and are considered an invasive species.

“I hate them,” Susan said.

However, the Vollers were more pleased with their Thanksgiving bird.