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blizzard warnings - 13:52 , 03 October 2013

heelerless - 21:32 , 18 August 2013

Red Coat Inn in Fort McLeod - 11:38 , 23 June 2013

rushing into the waters - 09:53 , 21 June 2013

choosing a spot - 17:43 , 27 April 2013

29 May 2008 - 23:56

skreak! skreak!

Skreak!...skreak!...skreak!

There was a desperation to the cries.

It was just after ten o'clock, and the wife and heelers were watching the news. The season finale of Lost had just ended.

And I was taking a walk.

To the park.

A warm night, no jacket or hat. A flashlight in my back pocket. I heard the screeching cries when I was still a half block away. They were what I came to hear.

They were both comforting, and worrisome.

As anticipated after last Saturday's incident, the young great horned owls soon fledged out of their rooftop "nest" in the refinery.

"Soon" as in yesterday. Refinery folk gathered them up in a box, and gave the game warden a call. He and I had already decided what we would do.

Almost always, young wildlife are better off in the care of their parents than any human.

We would kick them out in the park. Owls have raised young there before.

The only concern is... will the parents find them?

Or will they starve? The park is over a half-mile from their nesting site inside the refinery. Our only hope is that the parents would be able to hear their young's cries, since they couldn't very well watch them being moved.

The fellow from the refinery with a box of owls says they haven't seen the parents in over a week. Ever since the largest of three owlets fledged and flew off.

That's not encouraging.

But we stayed with our plan, settling the fuzzy owlets in the crotch of a large tree by the kiddie playground. As far from busy Main as we could get. To the south is only sagebrush and interstate.

Later, after making our delivery to the airport 92 miles away


View Larger Map

the heeler sisters and I stopped by the park just before sunset.

Two owlets. Sitting in a tree. Right where we left them.

By this morning they were gone.

At noon, I checked again. Even under the caboose. No baby owls. I stop by the town office and let the Chief of Police know about our owls, and our release. It's supposed to be his day off, but as I turn onto our street I see his SUV behind me.

Turning into the park.

People here... they like their owls.

Before dinner, I made a more thorough walk through the park. And was relieved to find the two owlets sitting apart, but in the same tree. Three trees north of where we'd released them. A smaller tree, but with a lot more foliage for cover.

And so, here it is, nighttime, during the news, and I'm checking on my charges yet again. Hoping to spot a parent owl in the area.

And all I hear is desperate, hungry skreaks.

I find the little skreaker high in a huge tree overhanging Main, perched on a branch just above the streetlight. I hear one fainter, single skreak from the sibling. In a darker part of the park, across the caboose.

No answering hoots.

I seriously consider walking down by the refinery gate and sending out a few hoots of my own. Hoping a parent searching for young inside that pipeland maze might come out to hear the skreaks.

But even in this small community that kind of behavior might not be understood.

I stand in the middle of the now silent street under the light and my gut starts getting tight. I dread the next day or so, when someone will find a weak baby owl on the ground in the park.

Or worse, a dead one.

Being young, lost, and starving to death. What a horrible fate to give someone.

Being raised in a box would have been better.

As my eyes begin to water to the sounds of unending skreaks, a shadow swoops low over my head. A shadow with wide wings and a thick tail!

And glides effortlessly up to land beside the skreaking owlet. Who is silent for only a moment or so, before the parent drops down and just as effortlessly swoops over my head again to land on the streetlight across Main.

And then flies off north, into darkness.

And my eyes water for real, now.

And my heart soars.

Like an owl.

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