Birds of a Feather

Things that are not quite right always seem to find their way through my back door. What's really strange is I apparently have a bizarre appreciation for the abnormal and welcome its presence with open arms. Case in point - right now I'm trying to compose this literary masterpiece on a laptop computer so old it has to reach critical temperature before the upper keyboard will work at all. By my side sits a Chihuahua sized Jack Russell so crooked she meets herself coming and going. Both are slightly flawed, but they have become an essential part of my daily existence.

Unfortunately, this tolerance for the wounded and imperfect may have made me an easy mark, but over the years it has also led to some pretty interesting experiences. One of the most memorable of these would have to include a very small visitor who arrived two days before Thanksgiving a few years back and comfortably roosted around our home well through the New Year.

We had twenty-two people coming for the big chow down on the third Thursday in November and I was rather frantically attempting to make dressing when one of my son's friends walked in holding an injured, pint sized owl. The creature had collided with the front windshield of the young man's truck and the entrance of this mesmerizing, wide-eyed raptor brought all culinary activities to an immediate halt. The hit and run teenager claimed he didn't know where else to take the tiny victim and relieving himself of any further responsibility, made a hasty exit back into the chilly night.

The little bird had trouble flying, but otherwise appeared perfectly healthy so we set up temporary shelter for "Screech" in a thirty-five gallon aquarium next to the refrigerators in our garage. Feasting on tiny balls of raw hamburger meat, Screech was brought inside for hand feedings three or four times daily and by the Christmas holidays all this handling had made him pretty tame.

In the evenings Screech would perch on the big poinsettia in the center of our kitchen table and lovingly coo at his own reflection in the bay window. Sort of a feathered fixture around our house, it gave us a scare when the normally ravenous little fellow temporarily lost his appetite, but one sleepless night spent administering eyedroppers full of water spiked with old canary vitamins seemed to do the trick and the bird started growing stronger with every passing week.

Something of a novelty, Screech had his fair share of visitors and one of these uninvited sightseers felt compelled to inform me that I was committing a crime by harboring a bird of prey. Now I tend to be a law abiding citizen with a rather sick sense of humor and I quickly apologized for not returning this wounded animal to the dirt road where the accident had happened so he could die alone in peace.

Faced with jail time for being an ornithoid napper, I then attempted to extricate myself from the long arm of the law by asking this self-righteous individual to hand me a hammer that was sitting on the shelf above Screech's cage. Explaining that I intended to use the tool to dispose of any evidence which could lead to my conviction, this code quoting intruder seemed to take offense at my solution and she swiftly fled from the scene.

Not too long after this incident we had a spell of severely cold weather and I decided to bring Screech inside for the night. He was getting to the point where he could fly pretty well, but I worried the owl's ability to hunt for food may have been diminished during his brief time in captivity. Figuring Screech could use a little freedom, I put him in the bathroom adjoining our bedroom, closed the door and bid him goodnight.

Sometime in the dark, wee hours of the morning I went into the bathroom for some water. Groggy with sleep I didn't bother to turn on the light, and had completely forgotten about Screech until the obviously hungry owl descended from nowhere, grasped my hand with his sharp talons and bit the daylights out of my finger. Startled, but impressed by his predatory skills, I realized my fine feathered friend was fully recovered and decided the time had come for Screech to return to the wild.

With warmer temperatures in the forecast, the next day I gave the cooing cutie an extra helping of hamburger and watched as the little owl soared away into the bright morning sunlight. No longer harboring an illegal alien, my criminal activities came to a happy conclusion and this episode with Screech taught me that every now and then it is OK to bite the hand that feeds you.