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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 20, 2019)
Tales from a Sisters Naturalist by Jim Anderson My feathered foster son, Part II In all the years Owl and I knocked 9em dead at school assemblies around the Northwest, I think, in some owlish way, Owl knew he was good looking. When we9d walk into a school, him perched on the shoulder of my pinstriped sports coat, the teachers and school secretar- ies would exclaim, <Oh, look, isn9t he handsome! Look at those eyes, aren9t they some- thing to behold,= and other swell compliments. All the time I thought they were talking about me, but when I looked at Owl he seemed to be holding his head in just the right way to give the ladies his best profile. When not performing in a school or assembly, Owl would sleep on a special pad- ded perch on my desk. One day a salesman stepped in on his way to the main offices and said, <The guy that stuffed that owl sure didn9t know what he was doing. Look at those eyes, they should be open; owls9 eyes are beautiful.= I gave Owl a gentle push and he opened his eyes and wings, glaring at me. <You9d better be careful how you talk about the guy that stuffed him, he9s pretty big business,= I said to the salesman who was standing there with his mouth open. I had made Owl a promise when we went to work with OMSI and later running the Children9s Zoo: <Stick it out, old pal, behave yourself and when we go back home I9ll turn you loose.= When John Gray hired me to come to Sunriver and put his landscape architect9s plan into motion with the residents and construction crew, I left the zoo, and with my wife and our two sons, moved into an old home built years before on the banks of the Deschutes. One night, after feeding Owl his nightly lab rat I felt it was time to live up to my promise, so I left the door open to the mews and said, <OK, Owl, you performed your part of the adventure Wednesday, November 20, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon beautifully. My promise to let you return to the wild starts tonight. I9m leaving the door open. If you want to go exploring and look for a new home, there it is&= And I walked away and into my own home. The next morning the mews were empty, but I left his breakfast sitting on his padded perch in the event he came back hungry. The lab rat sat there all day, so when nightfall came I left it there. The next morn- ing it was still there and no sign of Owl, and it went on like that for a week, even though I called him often. Exactly one week later, Owl returned from his adven- tures in the lodgepole pine and flooded meadows. When I came out that morning to check the mews, I thought he wasn9t there until I heard him make a very quiet grunt behind me, and when I turned I got the shock of my life: he had one good eye and one bloody eye. You can imagine my con- cern. I started talking to him, telling him everything was OK, but it obviously wasn9t. He allowed me to pick him up on the glove and that gave me a better look at his eye, which was worse than I thought 4 nothing but a bloody mess. I took him to town and 15 PHOTO PROVIDED Jim A. and Owl doing their thing at a school lab back in the OMSI days of the 60s. the vet said the eye was so badly damaged he couldn9t tell what was going on, or what to do. But he gave me a hint of how it got that way, <I have a hunch your pal got into a tussle with another owl. I9d like to know how the other guy looks.= Then he added, <I9d have an ophthal- mologist look at it.= And three days later that9s See OWL on page 25 CLIMATE STRIKE SISTERS Friday, November +2 ,:30 – -:,0 Intersection of Hwy 20 (Cascade) & Larch Street Sidewalks only – Bring your signs