The Owl and the Pussycat

I wouldn't ordinarily have been pacing up and down that particular stretch of road, nor any other for that matter, but this day was different. A little earlier, I had been driving down this road and noticed what looked to be a large bird sitting, unmoving, just along the edge of the road. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was a barred owl. It certainly was not a place one would expect to see an owl, so I felt certain that it must be injured or sick. The only thing I could think of to do was to call a particular member of the local Audubon Society whom I felt would know what to do about the creature. She was home, for which I was very greatful, and she said she'd be over as soon as possible, instructing me to go back and stand guard to protect it from humans and other predators.

Since this was the first occasion I'd ever had such a close-up view of an owl, I decided to take some pictures of it. So, with video camera in tow, I drove the short distance back to the owl. It was in the same spot as when I had left it a few minutes before. Staying a respectable distance from the bird, I began filming and while I had the camera on, the owl spread its wings, leading me to hope that perhaps it would be able to fly away. I put the camera in the car and just started walking up and down the road while waiting for the owl rescuer to come.

My little forays away from the car eventually led me as far as the nearest house. The people who had been living there in recent years had only lived there about half the year and would then disappear, presumably up to town, a few miles away to some better insulated quarters that possibly even had such luxuries as indoor plumbing which the house I was looking at certainly did not have. One year, the tenants had left their large dog to roam the neighborhood and be fed by the neighbors while they moved to town for the winter. So when I saw a little kitten in the upstairs window, I immediately became suspicious. I hadn't seen any signs that the house had been occupied in recent weeks, and I thought there was a strong likelihood that it had no food or water.

The house had quite a few doors and I tried them all as well as all the reachable windows, but each was locked. By this time the kitten had come down to the ground level and I could see through the screen door that it did not appear to be in poor condition. However, I felt I just couldn't leave it to the vagaries of our off-again, on-again neighbors.

Back down the road I went - thinking that Jean, the bird lady, might be arriving at any moment. Sure enough, she drove up shortly and asked where the owl was. I pointed it out to her and she went over to it. She got closer and closer to it - and then actually started to pick it up. I think she thought I was crazy because when she finally did get a hold of it, she reported that it was stiff as the proverbial board and said it must have been dead for hours. (I told her I had evidence to the contrary.)

She heaved the poor lifeless thing off into the woods away from the road and I thanked her for coming to try to help. My thoughts now returned to the plight of the prisoner-cat. I decided that the best way to get into the house would be to just slit a little hole in the screen door so that I could reach in and unlock it. In the kitchen, I found a couple of empty bowls on the floor and, in a cupboard, a bit out of reach of a kitten, was a bag of catfood. After giving the cat some food and water, I wrote a little note suggesting that - in the future - they leave adequate food and water available for the kitten.

When I got home, I decided that leaving the kitten in the house was a stupid thing to have done and went back, gathered up the cat and got rid of the note. Now the problem was finding a new home for her. I called some friends who had three cats, thinking that they might be willing to take on one more. The timing worked out perfectly. They had just acquired a painting of four cats and felt that fate had stepped in when I called to offer them a fourth cat so that her household could match the painting. And Jamie (that's what they named the new arrival) even looked a bit like one of the cats in the painting! 

                             The End
Note: Jamie used to frequent some outdoor cafes in the Dupont Circle area. Though she did live for quite a few years, she did not live to a ripe old age, succumbing to the tires of a speeding car... :-(

Go to another cat story.