A Great Horned Owl has made my century old California Pepper tree in the back yard his home. I have named him Batman because of his facial appearance, his big eyes with ears sticking up. He is a big bird, sitting on a high branch he is close to two feet tall. We have these starring contests and he is yet to flinch or fly off. Batman has been around for years, sighted sporadically atop the power pole on the corner or on the Joshua Tree in the front yard. Never did it dawn on me that my home was also his home or possibly his primary base of operations.
Last month I
sighted him high in the backyard California Pepper tree and I started looking
for him every day. Praises be, he is a continuing resident, probably hunting at
night and sleeping in my tree during the day.
If I could talk owl talk, I would say, welcome aboard, my home is your
home but quite possibly he was here first, although it has been twelve
years. I have been looking for the life expectancy
numbers for the Great Horned Owl but the books don’t want to talk. Anyway, Batman is a proud elder statesman.
It is
Thursday May 26 and Batman has been gone for two days. While searching this morning I spotted another
Great Horned Owl on Batman’s perch. I am
assuming this bird is an adolescent since this bird is about half the size of
Batman but the markings are very similar.
Batman Jr. has been perched in the Pepper tree for four days, hanging on
to the branches in a fierce never subsiding wind. The wind blows so hard some branches have broken off but Jr. stays put only moving a few feet from branch to branch. Where did Batman go? How could he leave family alone when Jr. is too
young to handle the wind?
If Jr. holds
on long enough and the wind is no more, will this bird have a daddy issue? The importance of mother’s cannot be
understated but daddy issues have a profound impact in American society if not the
world over. We tend to devalue fathers
as mere sperm donors but could it be that fathers in the family are as
important as mothers in raising balanced adolescents. When an aberration happens
among our male children, more often than not a daddy issue is involved. Boys, especially resent having to handle the
winds of life with no elder statesman in the family.
Some will retort that such a conclusion or this opinion is misinformation. A segment of the younger generation ladies have sought equality and respect by dominating men and disparaging fatherhood. Big mistake, resentful boys go into a destroy mode, most of the time not understanding what drives this behavior from within. There are extreme cases as school shooters but I believe that to a degree every American family with an anonymous, absent or emotionally disconnected father must contend with the destroy mode in boys and girls. What else would give us a hint at the root cause of criminality, drug dependence and suicide in our youth?
Then again, maybe Batman is a wise old bird who knows the right time for the next generation to spread their wings. Batman Jr. was out on the thinnest of branches this evening, struggling to maintain his balance in the wind, then flew away.
G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca
