Fuzzy looking friends

Big eyes and furry feathers give away his age

   I walk out the back door a little bleary eyed since the sun had not made it over the horizon yet. Minor inconveniences like that have never stopped my four legged friends. They accompany me everywhere and seem to run the house regardless of my intentions. Still too dark to really see anyway, I get a sense of something passing by really quickly and heading to my left where a fence frames the backyard. Thru the gloom I can just make out a small oval figure silhouetted on the fence rail. Pointed ear tufts, rounded head with a matching rounded body almost like the old weeble wobble toys.
   The little figure can obviously see better than I since it vanishes back into the tree over his head as silently as it appeared. The dogs are restless so we head out for a quick splashing of the neighborhood to make sure no one gets the idea that this street is uninhabited or lacking a pee patrol.
    When we get back from lifting legs for every bush, post, wall and blade of grass within 20 feet of their haphazard path I make a quick survey of the tree to check the status on the little critter I saw earlier. Sure enough, I spot him in the yoke of two branches with saucer eyes looking back at me. I notice behind him another set of eyes just as big on a smaller frame staring as well. Further to the left another set. It started to feel a like a cast member in a hitchcock movie.

Adult Screech owl keeping a constant vigil

   After a few minutes of scouring the branches, the total count is two full grown Western Screech Owls and four of their half feathered offspring hiding in the elm tree in the middle of the back yard. As the sun rises and shadows start to show in the tree the young ones make a cautious exit to the  fence line behind the yard but the adult male wedges himself into his secluded yoke of branches, closes his eyes and promptly falls asleep, ignoring the dogs rushing around below him.
   In the afternoon I find the family still split but hanging out  in the trees spending the afternoon incognito waiting for the sun to set to resume their night raids on the neighborhood mouse population. Never would have expected what I have come to believe was an exotic species co-existing in my humble suburban plot with a menagerie of creatures great and small, loud and silent. Makes me rather humble in my respect for mother nature.

Three young Screech owls hanging out