What an Owl Taught Me About Life

Five years ago someone found a baby owl, near-death, on their lawn. The wildlife rehabber who stabilized her consulted with me because of my experience with owls and hawks. Eventually my wife and I undertook the task of conditioning “Alfie” for a soft release; waiting out a developmental delay (most of her flight feathers came abnormally late that first summer), then flight training and hunting training. Alfie disappeared for a week. Then she chose to return, centering her territory on our backyard. I put a nest box on my writing studio. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Alfie’s first free-living year—mating, raising her first brood—coincided with the 2020 Covid pandemic that confined us to our yard. Friends said the birds were singing louder. But that wasn’t it. The humans were quieter. News media showed mountain goats on Welsh sidewalks, jackals in Tel Aviv, daytime raccoons sauntering through Central Park in New York City. Deer wandered in a seemingly de-peopled east London. The BBC showed us flamingos on a de-touristed Albanian lagoon, pumas in Santiago, Chile. Like many, we found in pets and gardens a silver lining to that awful year. But we alone had Alfie and her family. Soon I realized something mutual was happening. Alfie became a portal to a parallel reality. She brought us into more intimate proximity with the living world, softening borders between light and darkness, deepening perception beyond the usual. If t...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized climate change freelance Source Type: news