One of the most majestic aspects of the great horned owl is its silent flight. Their soft, delicately combed feathers allow them to soar effortlessly through the air without making a sound. The great horned owl knows where to go without raising suspicion, without raising eyebrows. They don’t make much of an entrance. Other birds might prefer the spotlight, but owls would rather stay unseen. Some people say this is to be expected of all birds, that this is the only way to keep themselves safe. Keep quiet and keep hidden, don’t show too much of yourself.
One crisp autumn morning, my father walked outside to get the newspaper. In the middle of the lawn was a great horned owl, laying motionless beneath a tree. My father, taken aback by the mighty size and striking beauty of the bird, immediately knew who to blame for the death. Not many days earlier, he tried using poison to get rid of the mouse problem around our house. The owl’s last meal must have been one of my dad’s recent victims, and so became one herself. Despite her silence and invisibility in the night, the owl was brought down to be displayed in the morning sun where everyone could witness her misfortune. My father never used mouse poison again.
As a master huntress, the great horned owl doesn’t need to worry about any serious predators in the wild. With its great horns and long, piercing talons, other predators are smart to avoid taking on this mighty bird in a fight. That is, unless you’re a crow. While a great horned owl can easily overtake and kill a single crow, a murder can be fatal. If a group of such crows discovers an owl in the daylight, the entire murder will harass, peck, and mob the owl from its roost, and sometimes even to death. Afterall, their great horns are just tufts of soft feathers.
It wasn’t the pictures that the boy took, the items he stole, or the unassuming glimpses he robbed of me that made me go insane. It wasn’t the investigation that took an entire semester to complete. It wasn’t the paranoia of leaving my clothes unattended in the laundry room or the uneasiness of stepping into the athletic facility again, afraid someone might be watching from a window with his hand down his pants. It was his friends. The friends that blamed me for reporting, blamed me for being a controlling, vindictive bitch. The friends that told everyone I was a toxic, pathological liar. It was the constant barraging, the incessant pecking, the insatiable rumors against me that finally drove me from my perch.
Despite the annoyance of the crows, great horned owls are still one of the most powerful birds of its habitat. Unlike other owls, the great horned owl can take down much larger prey like squirrels, opossums, skunks, geese, ducks, hawks, and even other smaller species of owl. She rules the night, slipping silently between trees, watching and listening for any sign of movement above or below. Her precision and grace through the air is beautiful and deadly. If a crow finds itself separated from its mob at night, he should pray that the great horned owl isn’t looking for retribution.
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