Animal Kingdom

At 11:00 Friday night Alex calls me on his cell phone from the car which he just parked in front of the house. “Mom, did you see the owl sitting in our front yard?” This might seem to be an off-the-cuff question, but it’s not really. We have a pair of horned owls that live in the trees in our back yard. I named them Ollie and Lollie and even wrote about them before. They still hoo-hoo-hoot in the early morning, but “No, son I didn’t see the owl.” “It’s just sitting in the yard.” Now I don’t know much about owls, but it didn’t seem right for one to be just sitting on the lawn instead of flying around catching some tasty little rodents for dinner. The next morning when Alex went out, he reported that the owl was now sitting next to the fence. I grabbed the camera and took a few photos before I called the Division of Wildlife. I’m pretty sure this one is Ollie. The man who answered the phone said he was about two hours out of town and asked me to call him back if the owl was still there around noon. It was and I did. A man from animal rescue called me back and said they had rescued a baby owl before but never a full grown one. He seemed pretty excited about the prospect. I asked him if he would let me know what Ollie’s outcome would be and he said after they took him to the vet they don’t keep track of their whereabouts. It didn’t occur to me until later to ask him which vet they would take Ollie to so I could follow up. We were a little distracted by this latest addition to our family. Meet Chloe. More on her later. I hope that Ollie is soon back at home hooting it up with Lollie. I heard Lollie hoot this morning and she sounded kind of lonely. Maybe Lollie and Chloe can become friends.