Tanya from down the road came round the other day. "Come and see; we've got a baby owl," she said. So I did.
Someone had seen the young tawny owl being mobbed by crows on Durdham Down, and rescued it. And then knocked on the first door they came to, which happened to be Tanya's. And she is a good person to go to when you've got an owl in need of help. The RSPCA were called, and decided that the Downs here are too busy and dangerous for a young, adventurous owl, so off it went to a rescue centre near Taunton.
It was a very lively owl, as you can perhaps tell from the picture. Young owls do like to wander.
There is a lot about owls that is interesting. Here, for a taster, are
Five Furious Facts About Owls.
- The Welsh name for an owl is gwdihw, which is a nice name and a pretty onomatopaeic one too
- Blodeuwedd was a woman made of flowers, who was turned into an owl as punishment for, well, unright deeds. Her name means 'flower face', which is a nice description of the owl. Another part of the punishmnt was that birds would always chase her if they saw her. Which they still do, of course.
- As I walked in the wooded valley of the Cabalfa Brook, on the Offa's Dyke path, there was a great commotion and squawking, and a tawny owl swooped past, chased by a mob of birds. This was in 1984. Then, passing the same way in 2007, exactly the same thing happened. Coincidence? I think not. (Cue sinister music with a bit of owl hooting in it)
- Traditionally, the owl was thought to be stupid, and nobody knows where we have picked up the idea that they are wise. But, whether we think they are wise or stupid, the owls dont care. Which is really quite sensible, of them, in my opinion.
- The Greeks reckoned that witches would turn themselves into owls so that they could go around doing witch stuff. You know. Stuff.
poor old blodeuwedd - made from flowers as a reward for a man, then punished for trying to kill him because she fell in love with someone else.Alan Garb=ner in the owl service implied she needed to be made of flowers again. I say she needs to be both otherwise the continual labelling of women as flowers or owls - good or bad etc etc done some work called reconcile http://maurahazelden.blogspot.com/search/label/reconcile
ReplyDeleteHope this little owlet gets on in life
http://s174.photobucket.com/albums/w103/hextenworth/?action=view¤t=SG7.jpg
ReplyDeleteJust struck by how amazing everything is. Everything.
Cute little ball of fluff, and you say it turns into an owl?
ReplyDeleteFurious fact #4 is a real hoot!
ReplyDeleteLooks like a hairball with eyes and beak. Like some large cat upchucked it.
ReplyDeleteLove the furious facts.
A very nice tale :-)
ReplyDeleteTwo questions Dru - (1) if not a coincidence, then what phenomenon was that, to wit? and (2) How can you be sure that owls don't care whether they are thought wise or foolish? (Mind you, owls with 'ears' do look a bit silly.)
"We are not wholly bad or good", Flo Fflach.... thank you for the link. It sounds like it was a good event.
ReplyDeleteOoh, nice owl, Deb! A barn owl lived on the farm in Devon I stayed on; we'd pass each other in the late evening, rather like that.
Apparently so, Caroline. Mind you, a big owl is still pretty fluffy.
Thank you, Melissa and Common Teri. I think Furious Fact Four was my fave too. I only added the fifth to make it five.
(1) I think that it was a daily ritual, Suzzy. After all, it happened just the same way on both the occasions I was in that wood, so it is reasonable to deduce that it must happen every day, as, of the birds surveyed, every one of them engaged in chase-the-owl on every day covered by the survey.
(2)Certitude doesn't need proof, just certainty. Tchah!