Branching

In April, the sun started rising early enough so that I started walking or running near dawn. Each time I returned, there were people gathered underneath the same cluster of eucalyptus trees in the park and I didn’t ask why. I mean, I wondered why, but people do strange things sometimes. Then, a few weeks ago, my friend Annie asked if I’d seen the owlets. The next time I walked by the small knot of people beneath the trees, I stopped and looked up. Where are they? Someone pointed. And there they were: three fluffy white owlets lined up on a branch like bowling pins, and overlooking them, a stern-faced great horned owl. The owls, I later learned, had been nesting there for months. Great horned owls usually move into another species’ nest over the winter. They need to start early, because once hatched, their owlets need more time under the watchful, night-seeing eyes of their parents compared to many other birds. A local naturalist told me that the owlets, even once they’re flying — one…