One week into the adventure, our errands accomplished, we were still in the van at twilight. Moving to the city was not what my husband and I had envisioned for our family, but food on the table is always a good thing! As we loaded our boxes into the U-haul we promised each other to look on the bright side of the concrete, but that particular night, after fighting traffic for 45 minutes, there was a shortage of positive thoughts. Rounding the corner into our brand new neighborhood I think it was Liam, then an animated three-year-old, who was first to spot them, “Mommy, look!” I slowed the van to a whispering tiptoe. In hushed tones, we watched as a mama raccoon and her kit crossed the street, “Wildlife in the city!” This was the moment we began to feel at home. From that day on we kept our eyes wide open, documenting our discoveries in the Observation Journal.
We’ve been city dwellers for nearly twelve years now. This past weekend our country folk friends ventured to the city to celebrate the beginning of fall. On Saturday, we were just about to begin breakfast when we heard a great commotion. We ran to the yard to find a murder of crows mobbing a Great Horned Owl snoozing in our tree. While I must admit this was an extravagant sighting, I was not surprised. My friends, on the other hand, were flabbergasted by this display of wildlife. Even the neighbors were drawn from their autonomous spaces, cameras and binoculars in hand, to observe the owl and her mortal enemies.
On Sunday morning Sara collected pellets from the base of the tree, “…a dissection opportunity for the Observation Journal.” And as you can see from the photos, the pellets provided a treasure trove of interesting material for scientific inquiry and discovery…not to mention a lot of ohhs and ahhhs.
The owl and the crows spent the weekend with us, then disappeared as mysteriously as they appeared.
Read more about starting an observation journal in the latest issue of Heart of the Matter's online magazine (see page 22).
Note: Should you not be so fortunate as to have a Great Horned Owl nesting nearby you can find owl pellets readily on the internet.