Night Visitor

This is a photo of the owl who came to visit us while we sat on the deck in Cape Cod. We were just finished having dinner and were talking around the table when my husband said, "There's an owl in the tree". I turned, expecting to see a blur in the distance, and was surprised to the owl was on the branch closest to the deck, close enough that I could have stood up and tugged on the branch if I wanted to.

He was a very composed owl. He sat there nonplussed for at least five minutes while we "quietly'" yelled for the rest of the family to come out and see it. He even endured three flashes of my sister's camera before he flew away. We watched him land at a tree across the yard, then disappear into the dusk. We never saw him again, but heard his companionable hoots many more evenings.

It was an unusual occurence, even at a house that was regularly visited with all manner of birds during our stay. The house was built on a hill on a very wooded lot. The living area of the house was actually the second floor, which was perched in the middle of the large trees that grew all around the house. Mountain laurel and rhododendren bushes had grown to the two-story height and provided plenty of hiding places for birds to flit in and out from the trees. Outside the den, next to the deck, was a bird feeder that we religiously filled each day. I sat outside each morning with my coffee and journal and watched the birds feeding and fussing at each other about whose turn it was for a perch.

The most regular visitors were black-capped chicadees, followed by house finches, whose rosy heads resembled the female cardinals who also were in the area. The male cardinals were flashing red all day in the trees, but rarely came to the feeder. As the week progressed, we were used to hearing the chirping and clatter of the feeder outside the window as we sat at the table and ate. The blue jays muscled their way in at times, sending birdseed flying everywhere as their weight tipped the feeder off balance. We were thrilled when an occasional yellow chicadee showed up, and ran for the camera when a Baltimore Oriole appeared, a flash of beautiful orange that flflew away before we could take a photo. Once a crow got jealous and descended on the feeder, its glossy black leaves purple in the sun. We held out breath, expecting the feeder to give way any second, but it held. My sister saw a woodpecker and we both saw a bird with a tuft on its head, whose name I can't remember.

The Cape always gives us gifts of nature like the visting owl. Last year, a red-tailed hawk visited every day and sat atop a telephone pole behind the house. It's shrill call was disturbing at times because it sounded very upset at something. After a few days, we became used to it and looked for its arrival mid-morning.

We don't have a bird feeder at home. With two cats who regularly are in and out of the house, a feeder would become a snack bar for them, so we'll have to figure out a way to hang one from outside our second-story bedroom window, or wait until next summer and the Cape again.

Or, better yet, figure out how to live on the Cape year round, a dream we've held for years. Gotta buy those Lotto tickets.