It's not what you would normally consider to be "nesting habitat".

At least, not for birds like great horned owls. Sparrows, (otherwise known as weaver-finches), maybe. Or pigeons.

But owls?

Here?

But, yeah.

The town cops and I had been wondering where the owls ended up moving to when the Baptists kicked them out of the hotel.

The call came a little before four o'clock. As I neared the end of an email that absolutely, positively had to go out that afternoon. So I told the refinery guy, it'd be at least 20 minutes.

Which I'm sure puzzled him, since he knows I'm like, a mile away. He promises to meet me at some gobbledy-gook "sally port".

Ooookay. English, please. He utters another incomprehensible industrialized name that ends with "tanker gate".

Nope. Try again. Are you talking the west gate, east gate, or main gate?

"East".

Okay. I can find that.

Twenty-five minutes later I'm passing the main gate when one of their standard green trucks makes a u-turn behind me and pulls up alongside. Apparently he figured I was lost, rather than late. In a conspiratorial voice he tells me he'll grab a hardhat and safety glasses for me. But "you can leave them in the truck if you want."

I put on the hardhat, adjusting it to fit with the handy turn-knob on the back. I am entering an unknown land full of toxic chemicals, hot pipes, and mazes of ramps and crawl spaces. I want the protection, thanks. Even if it is colored flourescent orange to identify the wearer as a naive visitor.

I sneak pictures through the windows as I follow his truck through the petrochemical maze. Everything is a mixture of decades-old brick buildings and rusty pipes and brand-spanking new steel. We are in the third or fourth year into their major refit. Most, if not all, of the windfall profits of this company are going back into upgrading and expanding, not owners' pockets. Hundreds and hundreds of new jobs.

Just ask us... we see the new employees sneaking past the cops parked on Main on our residential streets every day, from five-thirty to six. From Mid-Western welders to southern California gang bangers, complete with their colors and Mexican corrido music.

One of the latter is watching over the young owl, pressed up against a brick wall between heavy pipes. They point out the two-story brick building, practically buried under layers and layers of pipe, where they have been watching the owls raise their brood for months.

I climb a nearby steel ladder surrounded by rings of metal, like the ones below

to a third-story perch where they say they can watch the birds. It's not easy with the right wrist. As of Friday morning, the Doc says "we're done", but healing will "take time". Rehab gal says I've got most of my range back, surprisingly fast, but not much strength.

"It'll take time."

I asked. Where I'm hoping for next week, she said it'd be "mostly back to normal" by the end of summer.

Craaap. And it certainly ain't back now.

The owl watcher comes up behind, and points out the ear tufts of the owl sibling, barely visible. It is perched on one pipe, hidden by another. Easily half their roof is covered by pipes. No wonder the parents liked it. It's like a clifftop with steel branches for shade and cover.

There is no access to that roof.

The watcher points out a huge green valve on the other side. He says we can climb to there. It looks like it would leave a three to four meter gap to the roof.

"You could go out on those pipes..." he says.

Right.

I follow him back down, wondering what the safety rules and rules of etiquette are for this sort of thing. I wait until he's one floor down before starting to follow, hoping I'm doing it right. No one complains.

As we walk back to the owlet, I notice a hydrolic platform lift parked between the building the owl is by, and the one he's supposed to be on.

Can we use that?

It's parked less than two meters from the nest roof, too many pipes circumnavigating the building walls to get any closer. But it looks a lot better than the green valve route.

Well, we could, but none of the four men watching me tend to their owl is certified to use it.

Craaap.

I scoop up the owlet, pressing first down on its back until I can grab those vicious talons, and then tuck the flailing wings in.

And get bit for my troubles. Glad I grabbed my leather gloves before walking over here.

They found the poor thing in a drainage ditch under metal covers, and were worried how long it's been there. No one's seen two young on the roof for days.

I check its brisket, and it is fairly boney. But it isn't starved, and certainly has spunk. I think we can let the parents keep feeding it, instead of me.

So, how to get it back on the roof?

I lead them to the other side, to the tower with the green valve. And start climbing up using only my weak right wrist, the left carefully snuggling the owl against my ribs as we pass up through the safety tube.

This is not fun.

Once on deck, I can't find the green valve. The owl watcher has to point it out.

It is not on this deck, three stories up. You have scramble up, stair stepping on different sized pipes over open air just to get to the valve.

Then from there, work around this tower to the other side, again switching from one sized pipe to another.

One handed. Holding a pissed-off baby owl.

I don't think so.

For half a second I consider launching the owl like a football from here. But even if that could be done without hurting the owl, there is absolutely no open space to launch it through. We are buried in a 3-D maze of pipes.

We're going back down. I guess I have an owl to raise.

I immediately find going down is next to impossible clutching an owl. With a weak wrist. Every time I try to release, my body wants to fall out from the ladder, rather than down.

I end up going down using the safety tube, rather than the ladder. Stepping down one rung at a time, my feet spread wide. All is fine until we reach the final 8-10', and I run out of safety rail.

And get bit by the owl. A nice, painful snap right at the top of my bicep.

So, here I am, suspended in the air by spreading my feet across the tube, trying to gently convince the owl to let go of my flesh using my weak hand. Three or four refinery guys below trying to give advice.

Ummm, yeah. But not until I get it to let go, okay?

It seemed like minutes of agony, but I finally sqeeze fingers in the side of the bird's beak and get it to let go.

Okay. Easy part done. How do I get down from here?

My original guide suggests just dropping rung by rung, and catching myself with my "free hand".

But he doesn't know two months ago I broke that free hand. But there is little choice, and dropping I go.

No sweat. He offers me a "pipe crawler's" job when I get down.

As we return around the building towards the trucks, I'm running through my mind what meat we might have available at home to feed an owl. I'll probably have to go to the store...

And we meet one of the shift bosses, a fellow I've known for many years. And Steve, my guide, asks Charlie, the boss, if he knows how "to run the G3G7?"

"I think so..."

And so, we stand below while Charlie makes a test run of the wonderful little hydrolic platform parked around the corner.

All the way to the roof!

My hopes are up, until I realize neither he nor anyone else there even knows how to open the gate to the platform. But hey, if it takes this owl off my hands, we don't need no stinking gate.

It's a fun ride up, but as we have to swap places at rooftop level, the platform wobbles at its maximum extension. Leaning against the rail, standing on an assortment of loose bolts and pipefittings, I slowly have to extricate my glove from the owl's beak, and its talons from my shirt.

I'm still going to have to toss it a meter and half or so, so I have this horrible image of throwing it out only to find it has snagged on me somewhere and flops horribly back to the ground. In front of witnesses.

No, we're going to get this right the first time. It makes one more lunge at my face as I finally get the talons free and in my grip.

And I toss.

The owlet lands on its feet on the gravel roof, turning immediately to spread its wings to look huge and fierce.

After a few seconds, realizing we aren't following, it looks around. And sees where it is.

And runs across the roof to snug up against a vent, on the other side from its sibling.

"You won't believe what just happened to me!"

As I follow Steve back out, Charlie drives up at an intersection and flags me down.

"Should we throw some ground squirrels or something up there for them to eat?"

No. I give the standard response. Never encourage people to do what wildlife parents are doing on their own. And then I think on it a little more. Parent owls won't be feeding these youngsters for many hours yet. And the one was pretty thin. And Charlie's face fell when I told him 'No.'

His face brightens when I tell him, maybe one or two ground squirrels this afternoon would help.

And then I leave this alien, Blade Runner world. Where men in hardhats, wearing grease and oil soaked clothes...

Worry about baby owls.