April 22, 2018

April 22, 2018

Owl Chronicles 2018:

April 10, 2018:            First egg hatches

April 12, 2018:            Second egg hatches

April 14, 2018:            Third egg hatches

I filled the bird feeder this morning and it is half full now.  I should slip out and pour more seed in the back feeder.  House finches, cardinals, bluejays, and a chickadee all feast on sunflower seeds.  They must have nests nearby.  Somewhere.  Starlings drain the birdbaths.  They flutter their wings, speckled with gold, showering water on the grass.  Pretty birds.  Where have they nested?

The neighborhood is an explosion of color –  roses, bluebonnets, blackeyed susans, coreopsis, poppies.  Blue, yellow, red, white.  Blue-eyed grass sprouts on the front lawn.  They are gifts of the season.  Everywhere there is life, even if it’s not easily seen.  The sound beneath the sound.  Life under the earth.

There are three owlets now, growing fast.  During the day their mother covers them with her wings and feeds them from food cached in corners of the box.  Large birds; doves, who knows what else.  The owlets chirp, tiny peeps.  Their mother clucks to them, an avian lullaby.  In the evening, occasionally, Dad appears, poking his head through the entrance, a moth or insect stuffed in his mouth.  He does not jump in and feed the owlets like some other owl fathers.  In this family, it’s the mother that does that.  One egg lies unhatched, quite normal in owl life.

            I sit outside and watch the evening shadows descend on the backyard.  A dog barks.  Flickers of lightening bugs, the first of the year.  The pecan and walnut trees are leafing out, pollen strings falling over rocks and deck.  What a peaceful time of day it is with Daisy perched on the chair beside me.

– Christine Baleshta