Day 3 of Blogging With One Eye. I did drive to the store yesterday, it is much better. I can now type with one eye partially closed and one open, the glare is not nearly as bad.
We have discovered a mama robin who has built her nest inside of a plant placed directly outside of our garage. It hangs between the two doors, and is one of the nosier, more active locations in our yard. We thought we would help her out and move it a few feet to the left, away from the doors, yet where she could still clearly find it, only to discover that there were three tiny blue eggs already nestled inside. Moving it would have given the cats a better shot at reaching, so we moved it back . We now open the garage door only once a day and park the cars in the driveway to avoid disturbing her.
Yesterday, I came out to hear a raucous argument in the tree about twenty feet from her nest. The magpies are a favorite of mine, I've always loved their call, it's like a small children's whistle. But what I heard instead was a full throated squawk, and a screech I've never encountered. I knew it was the magpies, because that whistle was still present between the shrieks. When I looked up, I looked into the eyes of the first owl I've ever seen up close. I see them on roofs and light posts, but never this close. He looked like Robert De Niro in every movie he's in; unflinching, solid, not taking any of your crap. He was wedged between two massive branches, staring straight ahead, completely ignoring the hysterics that surrounded him. At first I only saw his feet, as his orange and brown feathers blended into the bark. They were huge talons with what appeared to be dungeon death spikes of yellow on his legs. Once I saw his face, he looked right at me and I thought "Well damn, that's an owl," like some sort of elementary birder. I grabbed my phone and began to record the melee, finding the frame with one eye and hitting the red button. Two magpies were above him to his left and right, screaming their heads off at him like Joe Pesci whaling on everyone in Casino.A little behind them in another branch was a massive blue jay, who was lending his own voice to the fray, but was not beating his wings about like the other two. As long as we're in mob world, he would be like Steven Van Zandt in Sopranos. De Niro sat, unscathed. I stared at him again and realized he had feathers in his beak.
I immediately panicked and looked at the tiny robin's nest, a useless gesture as she would clearly have vacated with all of this hubub surrounding her. I returned my attention to the ousting and the owl had not budged or blinked, but the other three were still determined to scream him out of their tree and off of their property. After what felt like a few minutes, the owl simply spread his feathers and slowly drifted down to the next tree, like that's what he intended all along, these hysterical ninnies had nothing to do with his choice to move. His swoop emboldened the others, who immediately took wing to scream louder and escort him from his perch.
I pushed the red button on my phone to stop recording, looked up at the birds as they left, and back down at my phone. I pushed the red button again, realizing that I had only recorded five seconds of me turning the recording on and off. I would love to blame my ONE EYE on the mistake, but alas, I do it pretty consistently. I am not the best at tech even when both eyes are working.
A half hour later when I came to check the robin's next, mom had returned. She is a teeny tiny thing, hiding in the green and red plant, looking through the leaves at me with one cautious eye. I smiled at her.
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