Not an Owl

Doc the Parakeet ended his long days Friday. He spent his last day struggling to breathe and munching a bit of food until he just couldn't hold himself up any longer and succumbed while we were at the park with the girls.
This little bird was a part of our family for at least ten years replacing the original bird named Feathers who was brought into the family by pet loving Amy. So we've always had a bird and sometimes two. We've taken excellent care of them even paying a scary-big vet bill to cure Doc of some kind of fungus that made him look as if he was a thousand year old bird with wrinkly, scaly skin and beak. When he recovered, he looked like a shiny new bird and we all rejoiced and were glad we'd spent the money.
Another owl did come in our lives in a secondary sort of way. Bobbie has been awakened three or four nights by the sound of hooting. She says it is very close and hoots in fours of three shorts and a long. And the owl is answered by another one close by. Imagine her examining the nearby neighbors' trees looking for white bird poop. So far nothing.
Yesterday when she and I returned from shopping at way too many discount stores and taking not enough fall photos at Willamette University, scads of crows were squawking and circling overhead. Bobbie ran around frantically calling, "Maybe they're mobbing the owl! They do that, you know!" She said this two or three different times maybe thinking that I didn't understand. I did but what I didn't understand was what she thought she could do if they were dive bombing the owl. I just sort of watched her as she rushed around shouting about the mobbing. I was both amused and concerned and not just for the owl. When we went out later to check, we spied the crows perched silently on nearby high branches. They seemed to be resting and Bobbie settled down thinking that the invisible owl(s) might be safe for now.