We had dinner outside tonight at a respectably late hour - around 7:45PM. Still lots of light. After finishing our meal, we sat there enjoying our mere 4 hummers - 2 Black-chinned and 2 Anna's - and watching a Brown Towhee attempt to bathe in a tiny birdbath. Delilah, a Mourning Dove, was snoozing on her nest above us. The next things that happened were so confusing and so quick, we were gasping for breath. We were watching a hummer at the feeder near Delilah when we both saw what we thought, at first glance, was a cat. Within a nanosecond we knew it was skunk - and I got alarmed because it was still daylight! It was running along the fence and slipped under the fence at a place I've been meaning to plug up for some time now. As the skunk neared his "escape," 2 birds flew from the redwoods, first one, then about 2 seconds later another one. At first we thought they were hawks of some variety, but the shape was totally wrong. Absolutely silent too. I stood up to see if I might spot one in the redwood toward which it had been flying. I saw something and went to get the binocs which were on the kitchen table. I came back, focused on the shape I saw and was overcome with joy to see OLIVE!!! Truth be told, I can say with certainty that it was a Screech owl, but whether it was Olive or not is not really known. The other bird we had seen was an owl too - they were almost identical in shape and silent flight. I searched the redwoods, but the one I saw had flown out of sight. Ivan thinks they were roosting in the redwoods and had just left to go hunting. I'll do a check of those trees tomorrow. We're not sure what, if anything, the skunk had to do with their departure, but we both felt weak in the knees after all that excitement!
I checked Olive's box, but it's clean as a whistle. I stuffed 2 bricks in the space under the fence where our scented friend had made his escape. So, now we're trying to figure out what these 2 owls were doing. Are they 2 ladies? 2 boys? A couple that wasn't successful in breeding? If I could see the face of one or both, I could tell if it was Olive. She had a distinctive pattern of stripes and curves on her face. I never thought I'd see her again. Maybe I haven't, but I sure enjoy the thought that maybe we have!
