Spring and Owls
March 21. The first day of spring.
I get restless in the spring. At the first scent of thaw in the air - that chill smells a little like ozone and fresh water - I want to go outside and hunt down the first patch of bare earth I can find, to seek crocuses under the snow, to see meltwater make it's way to the river. I want to explore. I want to move. I want to see new things.
Today, that restlessness exhibited itself in the pressing desire to see owls. Why owls? I have no clue. Usually, when a desire to see birds manifests, it the desire to see hawks, falcons, or even the floofy little merlins that live down by the river. Never owls.
Ususally, the only time I get a really good look at owls is in the winter, when the Snowy Owls come south and perch on the telephone poles usually occupied by Swainson's Hawks and Red-Tails in the summer. But today? I want to see Saw-whet owls. Barn owls. The huge, regal Great Horned owls. The owls of summertime.
I wonder if the zoo is open yet... It's no midnight-owl-hunting by the river in June, but it'd certainly satisfy my craving for small, floofy, large-eyed creatures with perpetually shocked expressions.
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Fun fact - the Inuktitut word for owl is ookpik, which I think is one of the best words ever. Ookpik. Hee.
posted by Alina at
10:35 AM
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