We were driving home from Saturday errands yesterday, when Greg suddenly said, “Oh wait, you have to see this,” and looked for a place to turn the car around. This is always a good time. It means he glimpsed something that went by too fast to point it out, and now we’re just hoping it’ll stay in the same place till we can get back. It’s our own little Wilderness Adventure, and it comes with a risk. Sometimes the Thing stays put and sometimes it doesn’t.

This time it did.

By the rules of the game, you don’t have to disclose to the passenger what you saw, but Greg did. “This was SO totally an owl!” he said. The reason that has to be emphasized is that we have seen a lot of things that might have been owls, and we’ve even seen some that probably had to be owls. But since they only come out as the light fades, you usually don’t get a decent look at them. And unlike the hawks that perch high in a tree where you can see them, owls seem to want to be less obtrusive.

Except for this one. I didn’t have any problem making out the place that Greg had in mind, once the car was turned around. It was definitely a big bird in a tree.

Which is fine, y’know, as far as getting a decent look at it. But it was such unusual behavior for an owl that Greg and I both started to have our doubts. As we got closer, we could make out that it had a kind of round body and head, but then hawks will fluff up sometimes if they’re feeling sleepy. We didn’t want to get our hopes up.

It was when we started to draw up level with the tree that we could be more definite. “That’s not a hawk.” “Look at the shape of its head.” “That is SO an owl.”

And in case there was any doubt, I had the extreme honor as we were passing underneath its overhanging branch of having it look down at me as I was looking up at it. No mistaking the ear tufts outlined against the sky. And I even had a snapshot glimpse of those large, stern eyes looking down at me in surprise and disapproval, as if to say, “Madam, please!”

How silly is it that things like this make our day?