Each evening at dusk, I eagerly look forward to one of the highlights of my day. It is when I take off the hat of my business marketing, coaching and training day and put on my bird watcher's hat.
Yes, I am a backyard 'birder'. I don't know a whole lot about birds; I just love having them around. I love the motion and activity and color they bring to my yard and my park-like neighborhood. I love the sounds they make, from little twitters, to amazing songs and even those raucous grackles. Signs of life are all around. I feed the finches, doves, cardinals, starlings, wrens, and chickadees and of course by default the squirrels!
My latest fixation is on my very own owl. I received an owl house Christmas before last. It was installed with an engineer's precision (my ex-husband) in a tree in my front yard. It is facing the exactly correct direction, sits on a wonderful big branch at just the perfect height above the ground. A place any owl would be proud to call home, according to the people at Wild Birds Unlimited (my second favorite shopping place after Nordies and Steinmart), but I do digress...
Anyway, according to the bird store, I would have an owl settling in very shortly. Time is relative. It took a year for some discriminating little screech owl to find my place...I was coming home from walking the dogs and it was just dusk when something caught my eye up there. At first I thought a squirrel had taken over and it's head was peeking out the hole. I wear contacts and that tree branch is pretty high and it was dusk. I practically tripped myself over the dog leashes trying to get in the front door to the binoculars before whatever it was disappeared!
I was just ecstatic to see that it WAS in fact a real live owl!!! I watched for a few minutes until it got dark and I saw it soar out for its nightly feeding flight. Next step was to call my neighbor, Laurie on the phone and brag. Next evening of course I couldn't wait to see if he would still be there...lo & behold, there he was!
He is really quite small as owls go, but his head is huge compared to his body. After a month or so, another owl appeared. Ok, now I've hit the jackpot--they are NESTING. I would see first one owl sticking their head out to assess the evening. After he swooped off, the second would follow. Soon I would have a whole flock of owls on display for my personal enjoyment. According to my limited research, it should take only a month before the eggs hatched...
Well, the bad news is, that no baby owls have appeared. I feel that maybe something raided the nest? The good news is that my little guy is still peeking his head out every evening and taking off to find his prey. I think the mate is gone. When I happen to arrive home in a timely manner, I sometimes sit on the lawn with the binoculars and Muffy (my Maltese) and a glass of wine. Catching a glimpse of that little owl is my way of reconnecting with the rhythm of life, a moment of hope and expectation
Maybe there is a marketing message here? He's established himself, he's had a set back, but he's sticking with what he knows, he's on track with his system and process. I think he will soon attract himself another mate...er...for us that would be a client. Perhaps you have a female owl in your yard that your could refer to us?
Hope you all are taking some time out of your busy days to smell the roses for yourselves, too!
