BLINKY

 Blinky

My wife was in the kitchen preparing dinner. I could have been helping her, but I was in the recliner with my feet up, getting the pressure off my swollen ankles. My back brace chest piece was riding up and poking into my Adam's apple. My back surgery was just over five weeks ago, but the swelling of my lower extremities has persisted. She was making quite a chatter in the sink, but it seemed to be reverberating from one end of the house to the other. Not all the noise was coming from the kitchen. "Honey," I said. "I hate to ask you when you are busy, but could you come down here and check the back deck. It sounds like something is scratching and knocking on the slider door." She has been doing a whole lot of fetching and doing things for me for the last five weeks, including tucking me in at night. She passed my chair to peak around the corner.

"OMG," she exclaimed. There is an owl on the deck pecking on the slider window. It's flapping is beak like it's trying to talk to me and "blinking" its big yellow (iris) and black (pupil) eyes. By now, I had lowered the footrest on the recliner and grabbed my hiking poles (with the rubber tips to protect the floors). "OMG. Get your camera, I shouted. So started the picture taking and questions galore, more questions than answers, like who should we call, animal control? A lot of the questions were directed at the owl, which just continued to flap its beak. We ended up leaving a message for the animal control officer and got a number for "A Place Called Hope" a Connecticut birds of prey rehab center. In the meantime, after mesmerizing us for about twenty minutes, "Blinky" we've named already, has decided to move on, jumping off the deck and running for the woods. My, this guy has big feet and long talons. "Blinky" is covered with soft grey down feathers. It's a juvenile. It can't fly. What is to become of it? How does a flightless bird protect itself? It's so vulnerable.

Long story short. Tis the season for fledgling Great Horned Owls to leave the nest, by accident or kicked out by the parents. The babies have climbing ability and when settled in a tree, the parents will find them, protect, and continued to feed them. I learned all this from A Place Called Hope, the Internet, and the almost three-hundred responses to my post I got on a Hiking in Connecticut Facebook site. They are still coming in with more OMGs, factual data on owls, and helpful suggestions.

You never know when an owl will come into your life. One summer, my folks were sitting in their living room over 50 years ago. My mother said she had this strange sensation the someone, something was looking at them They glanced over at the fireplace. Behind the glass door, sitting on the grate, was this big-eyed owl staring at them. The owl had fallen down the chimney. Lots of questions, more questions than answers. In the end, a neighbor came in with a big sheet, enveloped the owl, took it outside and released it, no photographs and social media impress anyone.

Thirty years ago, my son and I took one of our backpack trips in the Adirondack Mountains in pursuit of the hundred highest peaks in New York State. My story of that adventure "Dreams at Sucker Brook" is in my first memoir "Hiking Out." The story involves two owl species, the first, a little guy with a shrill voice called a Saw-whet Owl, the second, an adult Great Horned Owl, a magnificent bird of prey. He or she landed on "silent wings" on a boulder in the middle of a stream right next to our encampment, staying for about twenty seconds before drifting silently downstream out of our view. Two times I have been blessed by a Great Horned Owl, this week by one that stayed long enough and seemed to be trying to have a conversation with us. I guess it was us that did all the talking.