At Night's End

At Night's End

And here's one of my sister's best field trips. She set the alarm for 4 a.m. Note the "a.m." part. It's what helps you know how serious she is about how she experiences the natural world. She actually got up at that time of the morning, packed her car with her field gear and drove out into the dark streets, over the bridge and then out into the boondocks to the owl grove. She commented about how deserted and quiet the world was, "Even the homeless people were asleep." She said she could see them rolled into lumps of street beds and could almost see the zzzzz's wafting over them.

My guess is she probably made sure she driving extremely slowly as she approached the shelter to make sure that her hybrid vehicle stayed in the no engine sound mode. She opened the door as noiselessly as humanly possible, unloaded her gear, then shut the doors with the quietest of clicks. This part I know for sure: She shouldered the gear and then tippy toed around the grove looking for owl silhouettes in the trees above as the first glimmer of light began to appear. It almost makes me laugh to envision this. Okay. It does make me laugh. Just picture it yourself. A tall, thin shadow burdened with tripod, camera equipment, and assorted sundries she always keeps in her backpack sneaking soundessly around a just barely beginning to be light fir grove. Her head is back and mouth open as she peers into the high darkness searching for the owl family.

And, by golly, she found them! In a several day search after the giant storm, she learned that the baby had indeed survived and on this trip she was eager to see them settle in to their beds after a night of hunting. Of course, the baby still couldn't fly, so the parents would have spent the night hunting the nearby fields and delivering owl take-out to their ravenous child.

The sky grew a shade lighter. She could see the mother owl and hear the baby owl as he sounded his raspy cry for more food. Mother hooted back soothingly. This exchange continued until Baby figured out that the local food marts must be closed and that it was time to go to sleep.

Click. Click. Click. Some more photos. She knew they were aware of her presence as the action of picture taking didn't seem to bother them. And she spotted the father as well. He was some trees away from the mother and child as if to gain a bigger scope of their home territory and serve as an outpost guard. The quiet, the smell of the late spring morning, the soft air and the sound of fir branches slowly bending in the warm breeze all served, I'm sure, to affirm for my sister why this outside world made so much sense to her.