Well, I will give you the short version. I had been out for a while hunting Elk in the high country. The previous night my friend starts talking about nighthawks and catching by hand when they were on the ground.

Well we are coming down a mountain side in a bunch of scree at night. Sure enough it looks like a nighthawk is sitting amongst the rocks right beside us. Well he decides to show us his technique for catching a nighthawk. keep in mind we have the light from a crescent moon.

He reaches down really slow and the head pops up and its a really small owl. probabaly a pygmy mountain owl or a really small screech owl. It reaches up before he can touch it an bites his finger and holds on. He draws his hand back but its too late and its not letting go. He is trying to shake it off and dancing around trying to keep his balance in the scree on a healthy incline. The thing finally lets go and just flys off. My other friend and I are sitting on our butts laughing because there was no way we could stand up and keep our balance because we were laughing so hard.

Apparently owls bite really hard. Even small ones.