it's not a barn owl. that's all i know. maybe it's a hawk. it might just be some kid's wind up toy. all i know is it is too stealthy and too quick and too smart for me. so instead of trying to stalk it with a camera i'm going into the garden with a white flag.
i tried early this morning. i was vewy vewy quiet. i surveyed the area carefully, a little at a time. i went over the garden from one end to the other. i decided he'd flown the coup. so i put the camera away into my top pocket and instead gathered some fallen areca fronds for today's garbage pick-up. returning from my third trip to the curb, i closed the gate and headed round the back of the house to come inside.
from maybe just four feet above my head, the bastid takes flight. he soars over to the opposite side of the garden where he hides in the thick shrubbery. i walk over with camera in hand. not a sound. not a movement. i can not see where he is. i know odo has shape shifted onto a branch or a frond somewhere in the vicinity but he has turned on his cloaking device.
i turn my head for a second whereupon he comes out of hiding and before i can focus my own eyes, never mind ready the camera, he's already across the garden again and has disappeared into the landscape. i surrender. there's no hawk there. there's no owl there. there's no bird at all. please forgive these posts. i believe i've imagined the entire affair. odo is just a figment of my imagination. an apparition, a play of sunlight picked up by the lense of an obviously faulty digital camera.
i'm sending the camera to the shop and i'm sending myself to the nearest pub. bartender, another bloody mary if you please.
crossing off bird watching from my list of acquired skills.
ps, just in case you're wondering why someone might not be able to find even a big bird in their garden...
you can hardly even find my house through the trees (that's about a 50-60 ft high canopy)