Rest For A While: The Great Raptor
The snowy owl ( and all owls) endangered, were shot down for target practice, killed only for their feathers to be plopped into huge vases in hotel foyers, along with those of pheasants, and jungle parrots… all killed for their feathers.
How much more beautiful are those feathers when the living birds are robed in them. How much more beautiful when those feathers quiver, are flapped, lowered and raised like airilons, when those feathers ripple in the wind, gliding, hovering… so as to break your heart with the creature’s beauty.
The owls are not ‘pets,’ they are wild, and they are predators. An adult owl swooping down from the sky can strike from behind a man riding a bike whilst wearing a ‘tasty looking helmet.’ The owl can knock that bicycle rider to ‘kingdom come’ with the force of its avian drop-weight.
The owls are devoted to their downy young til they fledge, and they are, I think, our blessed reminders of the risks and rewards of being free to truly fly in our own lives too. We are all in our own ways seeking the balances.
If you havent already, I hope you will see a great snowy owl in person someday. And in your own good way, that you might, even in your night dreams, for a time, become one.
That would be my blessing hope on you this day.
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Fascinating subject Dr E (especially for we birders)! Owls are such cool birds. We have Great Horned and Screech Owls around here. The Screech Owls can make some pretty crazy sounds and might startle people who don’t know what is making the noise. I sometimes see Great Horned Owls when I’m in the woods early mornings and evenings. When I’m sitting still they can come quite close at times. They can get BIG so if one flies by you won’t miss it. If one shows up a bit later in the morning once the birds and squirrels are active the immediate area gets very, very quiet all of a sudden. Btw, the Great Horned Owls up here do their nesting and raising of young in the middle of winter. Not sure why that is, but probably it’s related to the maturing process of the young. I’ve never seen a Snowy Owl in the wild, but I’d sure like to..
Remembering the controversy when the endangered Spotted Owl was the “indicator species” of protecting the great forests, primal lands, of the West. Environmentalist, or course, knew what “indicator species” meant, that these owls needed certain an entire ecosystem to survive, not just a stand of one tree species.
Logging proponents saw only that their livelihood was to be traded to keep just owls alive. Solution by some was to make the owl not a problem…not endangered species, but EXspecies. So though this Spotted Owl tactic may have served to preserve vast tracks of virgin forests, it probably cost owls their lives. The environmentalists perhaps would have chosen another “indicator species,” like the newt or a variety of snail.
Have not seen many owls in the wild, occasionally headlights catch one as it swoops low over the country road. Always breathtaking.