Thanks everyone. We did get super close! There were crows and blue jays that had been screeching for 20 minutes. We decided to go see what all the fuss was about, and there was the owl, just looking like he wanted the crows to go away so he could catch some sleep. He was maybe 15 feet up. There were a few angles without too many branches in the way, putting us between 10-15 feet back too. Pythagorus tells me that puts him at about 21 feet from the camera (when 15 feet back). There weren't any good angles that could get the full bird at once, at least not from the side of the fence with neighbours we knew. He didn't seem to mind anyone being around, and sat there resting for several hours.