I'm sure some of you are getting tired of owl reports, but this one is good...

Was getting bored by an old Voyager when I decided I should probably check the owlets at night.

Just because I never have.

So the masked heeler and I took a walk in the dark.

Both owlets were perched up on the railing, each spaced exactly eight bars in from a corner. Nice symmetry. And looking like they have been doing this for years.

No parents around, so we waited. Masked heeler flushed something out of the lilac bush, but I have no idea what.

Couldn't believe the traffic going by, so late in such a small town. At least three cars and a motorcycle. We settled in to wait for a parent owl, sitting on one of the cannons. Soon a car came slowly down the main drag from the west.

The town cop car.

As it reaches the hotel block, and the diversion around the median island (that we are loafing in), the spotlight comes on.

I'm expecting to be accosted and confronted.

But no, the light sweeps up immediately to highlight the owlets in their balcony. Then turns off. The cop car proceeds past us and our cannon, then slowly u-turns to come in front of the hotel.

Spotlight comes on again, again directly on the owlets.

Probably not a threat, but if you've ever been spotlighted when your eyes are set on night vision, you know that is blinding.

Cop car pulls in to semi-park in front of the hotel, light still on the owlets.

He has no idea I'm here. This will be fun. Done this before (first time with a couple security guys supposedly on patrol who were harassing deer at Rocky Flats).

We walk up unnoticed to the driver's open window. He has a passenger.

"You know they'll go blind, you doing that," I speak quietly.

Is it possible to give one's self whiplash?

His look of surprise is immediately replaced with sheepishness. The spotlight goes off. We had a nice visit about owls, feeding, etc. And our owl contingency plans to date.

Three times he tells me he wasn't trying to spotlight the owls. Just checking something on the first floor, and the spotlight is hard to aim.

Well, that's true if you're new to it. But I've handled those spotlights before. Pointing them becomes second nature, especially for someone who uses it as often as a town cop.

All three of us know he went home to get the wife, and brought her out here just to show her the owls. Okay by me. Not like I never spotlighted anything, either (before it became illegal in this state).

Once again the masked heeler provided a graceful exit from a conversation, getting bored and tugging on her leash.