Canter Bridge

Returning from vacation in Montana to our more humble, flatland environs, my wife and I were greeted in the semidarkness by the sweeping, silent sight of a large owl departing a branch of one of the evergreens that separate our front yard from Holliday Park, just across the street.

On the list of my tiltings at windmills appears the placement of two owl boxes a pair of years ago. A smaller one awaits Screech Owls in our backyard. A much larger one, placed at risk of life and limb in the mentioned front-yard tree, invites tenants of the Barred Owl variety. Except for quizzical squirrels, these two aviary condos have stood empty, significantly driving down the occupancy stats of my coterie of birdhouses. Only the wrens have kept my numbers from plunging below respectable range.

The fact that this week’s large owl—it was too dark to learn much about its identity save its enormous size—had perched just ten feet from my Barred Owl box gives me hope that there’s some relationship between him and his potential home.

Writing now from Seattle, I have no immediate way to follow up this sighting. But, as neighbors have been telling me for some time, there are indeed owls in the mix in this beguiling, tree-filled Indianapolis neighborhood.