Tyto and Alpa

Tyto and Alpa

by Cleve Taylor

Tyto slightly warped his wings turning him toward the tell-tale scratching sounds of a field mouse who sought sustenance among the soybean plants. Guided by sound in the black of the night, he clearly heard the rustling of the small creature that had no idea he had only seconds to live before he would contribute his body to the circle of life.

On this night, Tyto had scored twice already. An unsuspecting lizard and another mouse had already contributed to the larder within reach of Alpa, his life mate, who sat on a nest of seven eggs waiting for their brood to hatch. Hers was a comfortable nest in the eaves of the hay barn at Tuscarora Farm on Maryland, Rt 28, heading west toward Point of Rocks. Her nest was made from regurgitated pellets which she had shredded and fashioned into a cup shaped nest; a nest used as a roost by the pair of barn owls when it wasn't being used as a nursery.

Tonight was routine. Tyto glided low over the soybeans, his wings extended almost four feet, silent and ghostly with his whitish underside.

The rustling sound led him over a narrow macadam road. Totally focused on his prey he did not see the Ford 350 pickup that he thudded into, hitting a glancing but not fatal blow. The driver did not see Tyto who had struck from the side and who was not visible in the rear-view mirror when the driver looked to see what had caused the thump that he had heard. Deer, foxes, squirrels, and birds were regular roadkill on Maryland roads, so the thump the driver heard did not portend a crisis.

Nine-year-old Becky, sitting in the passenger seat of a Nissan Versa trailing many lengths behind the pickup, saw the large white bird sail into the side of the vehicle, bounce off of it, and catapult off and over the truck to her side of the road.

"Daddy, Daddy," she exclaimed. "A big bird bounced off that truck and might be hurt. It might be an eagle. We need to stop and help it if we can." Daddies always try to please their little girls, and this Daddy would deny his daughter nothing. So he braked to a stop where he thought the collision had occurred.

He left his headlights on and retrieved an LED flashlight from his glove box. It took only a minute for Becky to spot a large pale gray barn owl lying in the weeds on the side of the road, its dark eyes peering from its heart-shaped face into the glare of the flashlight. It was obviously alive but not trying to fly or even to sit up.

"We need to take him home with us and help him get well." Becky said matter-of-factly. Daddy winced. He did not like to tell his daughter “No."

"Becky," he said, "that's a barn owl and he probably has a family nearby. He's wild and we don't have the skills to help him. He may just be woozy from his collision. Why don't we sit in the car and watch him for a while? He might just shake it off and fly home."

Becky was disappointed. For a moment she thought she might get an owl for a pet, like she had seen in the Harry Potter movies. But she hoped her Dad was right and that the owl would recover.

Becky and her Dad got back in their car, turned the headlights off but left their parking lights on, and kept their eyes on the area where the owl was. While sitting there Dad called Mom to tell her that they would be late and why. And they talked about owls. About thirty minutes passed and they were about to check on the condition of the owl, when they suddenly saw movement. The owl stood up and Dad turned on his headlights. Tyto looked straight at them with his black eyes, stretched his wings twice testing them, and with a hop and a flapping of wings went airborne.

Becky clapped her hands happily, looked at her father, and said, "He's going home to his family, isn't he?"

Dad smiled, "I would imagine so. And that's exactly what we are going to do, too."

Back in the barn when Tyto arrived with no food in his talons, Alpa just silently stared at him and shook her head.