owls

The one thing that is really nice about living up in the Newburyport area is all the programs you can attend to that relate to wildlife.

Bird watching is big activity up here. The Joppa Flat Audubon society, the Parker River Refuge, bird Watcher shops and others, all sponser all kinds of family friendly nature programs.

Last night, I attended a mini-lecture on raptors and owls.

A woman from a York, Maine, a "birds of prey" rehab center brought a few hawks and owls with her as a part of the presentation. She said that she has had over 1000 injured birds brought to her center mostly due from injuries from cars and cats.

People throwing trash out of their car windows such as an apple core laying on the side of the street invite birds to eat on the street . This invites injuries from passing cars. The ridiculous over-population of cats that roam freely outside has been a big problem with the fledgling song bird population. I, myself, have rescued or at least tried to rescue, injured birds from mauling cats.

I think of the book "Flyaway" by Suzie Gilbert about a wild bird rehabber. She was frustrated and disgusted with how careless people were in regards to so many wild bird injuries.

I enjoyed seeing the owls this lady from the York rehab center brought with her. There is something about owls, in particular, that I am drawn to.

I used to live in the town of Stow. It once boasted to have one of the largest owl populations on the east coast. Unfortunately, greed took over and a huge plot of undeveloped land were bull-dozed down destroying owl habitats to make way for hundreds of la de da houses. The "new" street was named, ironically, "wildlife way".

What a F*&^ing joke.

I had wonderful neighbors in Stow that loved "critters". One night, a small owl flew into the head-lamps of their car. They were going slow so they, thankfully, just stunned the owl and pulled over to help the little owl.. They picked him up and put him in a cage with a cover to let him recover from the shock. He was a cute little guy. The next day, he recovered and they let him go.

As I reminisce about this incident I can't help but think of the book "Wesley the owl" by Stacey O'Brien. (It's a great story, by the way about a lady and her owl)

I see red tail hawks , turkey vultures and sharp shinned hawks all the time flying around or, perched up on a tree in theNewburyport area. I never get tired of seeing them. Owls are masters of camouflage so I don't see them that often but I hear the eerie sounds of the screech owls pre-dusk.

I just rented this movie called "the fourth kind" about a presumed alien abduction in Nome, Alaska. All these folks who have claimed to been abducted by aliens said they first saw a scary looking owl looking at them through their window. They were all scared shitless of this owl.

I dunno, I'd love to see an owl perched outside my window!

* the photo above is a picture of an Eastern screech owl