I just got home and took Teddy outside to pee. He sniffed around to find a spot, lifted his leg, and was sniffing around some more, and wandered into some bushes at the back of the yard. There was immediately a loud rustling sound, and a bird flew from there to the tree in the center of the yard.
It was obviously not one of our usual birds – bigger, and seemed to fly a bit more slowly. And so I looked up into the tree, and there perched on a branch was an owl – a good sized one.
“Hmm,” I thought, “maybe that’s why I haven’t seen roof rats running along the electrical wires in a while. Welcome, Mr. Owl!”
Teddy trotted out and looked around – clearly, he knew what he’d seen wasn’t the usual yard bird. (Bigger, for one.) So he stood and looked around, and I looked up at the owl on the branch. It looked back. I was keeping an eye out because birds can be nasty creatures – a childhood memory of taking care of big abscess on our cat’s head after a nasty tangle with a bluejay flashed through my mind – and Teddy slowly sauntered over to the tree, and took up his normal “watching a bird or squirrel” position under it.
I looked back up. The owl was gone.
Teddy usually watches intently, quivering with excitement, and jumping into the air, looking kind of like he’s levitating. Not this time, though; he just watched.
He was obviously done with his business, so I called him and we went inside. As we went through the back door there was a loud flutter from the foliage lining the driveway. The owl? Maybe. Inside we went.
Cool, though. At least it wasn’t a bat.
{ 1 comment }
Devo and I were hiking a couple of years back, when we heard this rustling of leaves in a tree about 25 yards in front of us. Out came a huge owl with an enormous wing span, and the whoosh of his seemingly slow-motion flapping wings was really something to see, along with the squirrel in his talons. I think it stunned Devo a bit. Like Teddy, he just stood there and stared. Nature at work.
Comments on this entry are closed.