Great horned owl chicks grow quickly,
though they remain dependent not being particularly adept at flying until they’re
nearly 3 months old. A pair of fledglings at the Vestal Place stood about 14
inches tall, but their feathers were still all fluff. In all the hours we were
there they did not leave the barn rafter. Linda, the current resident artist,
has been bowled over by this pair; more than the curlews with their long arched
beaks, or the giant hare leaping above the grass, or the cottontail that shades
itself everyday in the slim shadow of a power pole. The owls moved her more
than the young white tailed buck in velvet antlers, or mares with their foals
romping at the fence, or the cowboys on horseback herding cows like a
California movie. She has responded to all of these, but it is the owls she
brings up again and again. The pair that for all we know is still on the log
beam waiting for their parents to bring them rodents plucked from the fields
with fierce talons and dropped into baby beaks.
