Surprise Visit

These days it seems to get dark well before I get home from work. The sun starts setting before I leave the office and by the time I get home, it is usually just after dusk. So the other day I left work a little early so that I could go on a quick run before it got too dark outside. When I got back from my run, it was just about the time that I normally get home. There was still a little light out and as I was sitting on the porch cooling off before going inside, a bird that was larger than what I would usually expect to see at that time of day swooped up into some low branches of the Elm tree in front of my house.

The bird was obviously an owl. It was probably about eight inches tall, its body was wide, and its rounded head came straight up from its shoulders. It sat up on that branch for five minutes or so. I walked up underneath it and watched its silhouette as it attentively gazed back down at me. I could see the owl's head turning, going back and forth between watching me and my dog rummaging around out in the yard. Eventually, it quickly flew off into the ivy covering the tree's trunk and encompassing its major branches. I wondered if the owl was hunting something, hiding from my dog and me, or if it has a nest inside, maybe somewhere in the ivy leaves.

I did some research to see if I could pinpoint what kind of owl it was that visited me that day. From the size and shape of the owl and also from where I saw him, in the middle of suburbia, I think it was a Western Screech Owl. According to the Utah Division of Natural Resources, "the western screech-owl is commonly found in suburban and urban areas such as woodlots, orchards, oak woodlands, and riparian woodlands. It is fairly common in Utah, where it can be found along stream-side areas and occasionally in city trees."

I live in an area that, even though it has grown significantly in the past ten years or so, is still fairly rural. My street is an older street and harbors a pocket of farm life and it is common to help neighbors catch their escaped horses, cows, or goats. But even though the farm-life still exists, my street increasingly grows continually busy and every year more and more houses are built on the fields I grew up playing in. When these glimpses of nature surface in the everyday, it is a welcome rejuvenation. It is amazing how much animal and plant life is right in front of us if we only open our senses to see them.

Western Screech Owl
Photo Credit