Don't Tyto Alba me

"Tree or no tree,

I was set to Owl my way through."

Dear Reader,

Coming from the Tytonidae family I could have taken my heart-shaped face and faced things that were not as harsh as they looked here, in the jungles of Sutpuchi.

But I didn't.

My wings spread both ways, my feathers unread by the winds of the day. I sat here on my branch, awaiting a gust, a gale, a squall, a blast, of anything that could carry me away.

Call me a non-owl for I do love the barn so. It's cozy and warm in there and the right kind of dark that suits my eyesight. Not to mention the generous supply of grain and mice.

In my young life, I have figured that I am the proverbial "ugly duckling". Do you want to know why?

Because I care two hoots about staying up all night.

I want to play only play. And if my friends are awake only during the day, how do you think I can play with them? So I adapted to my core needs.

I find it most playful to bask in the honey-lemon juice of the sunlight and watch it attempt to sweeten every single thing. The million leaves on a tree singing a rustlingaga chorus with me chiming in my practiced screeches. The pebbles, the round ones, the tiny ones and how they crunch under my talons, it's like taking feet-bites out of the earth.

But they said, you just gotta be up at night.

What on earth for? I ask.

*

Tyto Alba is my scientific name. No, no not mine per se, but that of my species of owls on this planet. We are only 20 in variety now. Tyto means "night" in Greek. and "alba" is the pale white colour we wear. Our cousins are greater in number, the Strigidae are 224 different species. That's another reason why we are now lesser in number, cause we get hunted and become prey if we stay up all day.

And it's all my great great great grand mother's fault, they say.

Tyto Alba was my great great great grandmother's name. She's the one who challenged the status quo and was banned for preferring the day, the barn and play over the night, the forest and hooting. Oh no, they didn't tell me this, I dug it out from family archives. After all, it was a shame on the family that one of theirs would not follow the "Strigiformes" order.

Thus she began to Shree - a masterful ear-drum shattering shriek, an eerie, long-drawn-out shriek so as to let the "night-dwelling owls" know that the ancient order is challenged. To call them out to try the "day" life. To keep the predators at bay. The young and old Tyto Alba's even learnt to hiss like the snake to ward off intruders. Well, we even learnt a purring chirrup denoting pleasure. Oh ya, we are very capable of pleasure, more so than our cousins, indeed.

Anyway, I am done telling tall tales.

So here's a confession - the parts I told you about my rebellion to not stay up all night and the one about my great great great grand mother being a rebel too is all made up.

So that I could get you interested in the beautiful lives of Owl's on this gorgeous planet even if it doesn't feel like it to you.

Perhaps a bit of fiction can draw you into what magical non-fiction we have at our hands and our skies - by night, by day.

Be well my friends,

dee