The night before last I saw something I had never seen before: an owl in flight.

Now mind you, I've seen plenty of owls. I'm sure I've seen more owls than the average person sees in a lifetime. Owls are actually not that easy to spot. For one thing, one of the most common type of owls in this area is the screech owl. Trust me, you can hear the things for practically miles - they're just about the loudest thing on the planet, at least in the natural world. But screech owls are tiny, only 8 to 10 inches from tip to tail and they blend in almost perfectly with the tree trunks where they hang out....

never seen a screech owl in the wild. I'm pretty sure the owl I just saw wasn't a screech owl. It's wingspan was about 30 inches accross. I think it was a barred owl, what I always called a hoot owl.

There used to be a lot of these in the area, that's why they're the mascot of my old high school. In fact, when I was a teenage one used to hang out in the pine tree outside my window. This lead my friends to conclude that I was about to die, I guess based on that sentimental movie I Heard the Owl Call My Name, or the lyrics of "Wildfire". It's true that I didn't feel well, but I'm not dead yet! Besides, I probably encouraged the poor owl, since it was the only other creature up as late as I was, I occassionally leaned out the window and hooted back at it. But I never saw that one. Meanwhile, the poor bird was probably lookin' for love in all the wrong places. To quote E.B. White ( whose writing often leaves me a little on the queasy side: a little too much realism in the fantasy) "Interspecies relationships rarely work out."

Anyway, having seen this hoot owl in flight, I can more easily understand how owls came to seem mysterious to humans. This guy wasn't exactly flying. He was more swooping, gliding at a very low altitude. The sun had not yet set, but for a minute I wasn't sure what I was seeing because of the speckled pattern on his wings. He wasn't making a sound and there was something surreally graceful about the glide. Then he blended in so completely with the tree in which he landed it was as if he had never really been in the air at all.

I don't think they eat frogs, except, I suppose if they're really hungry. Still I think the pond frogs had better be careful and the neighborhood cats had better get used to some competition when hunting chipmonks!