Wrapped up in raptors

The air temperature will remain below freezing all day but, with mostly clear skies, the sun’s warmth is enough to cause notable melting, especially on and around dark surfaces. At least one blogger we know is relishing the break from seemingly endless cloudy days augmented by perpetually repeating snow showers. We now have enough snow in our area that twice in the past few days I’ve had to clear the top of a snow bank from the house number reflective sign put up by the township. The town plow buries it in plow wash with almost every pass. Meanwhile, several neighbors and I spent time yesterday clearing snow banks from around our mail boxes because the town plow has been leaving a barely cleared wide strip on the road’s edge where the mail boxes live.

barred owl, napping

Photo by J. Harrington

The barred owl is back, again perched on the same branch. A bit ago we also had a peregrine falcon perch briefly on the deck railing, then on a branch of the oak about 10 or 15 feet from the owl, from which branch the falcon missed an attack on an incoming bird headed for the feeder. It may, once again, be time this winter to take down the feeders for a couple of days. Warmer weather later this week should make it easier for the locals to adapt and then we can return the feeders when it starts to snow again on Thursday or Friday. There are what look like wing feather marks in the snow on the deck where a winged predator (the owl?) tried to capture a squirrel that was under the bbq grill or dove under it at the predator's approach. Since I’ve watched the owl and the squirrels and the songbirds ignore each other over the past week or so, I’m suspicious the predator may have been the peregrine but have no evidence that isn’t circumstantial.

We adjusted fairly easily to the hour’s shift in sunrise and sunset yesterday. I suspect the fact that the sky was covered with clouds all day helped. Since animals don’t use clocks other than natural ones, they don’t have to adjust twice a year. That makes me wonder if we humans aren’t being arbitrary, if not capricious, in our efforts to impose a mathematical rigor on the hours, days, months and years.

Canticle

William Griffith - 1877-1935

Devoutly worshipping the oak
Wherein the barred owl stares,
The little feathered forest folk
Are praying sleepy prayers.

Praying the summer to be long
And drowsy to the end,
And daily full of sun and song,
That broken hopes may mend.

Praying the golden age to stay
Until the whip-poor-will
Appoints a windy moving day,
And hurries from the hill.

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