The Dead Owl

Despite not getting to bed last evening until a little past 10 p.m., I set my cellphone alarm for 1:45 a.m. to get me up to begin readying for a five-mile+ walk.

When that time arrived, I did not feel too illy slept; and the house was in darkness, so there was no need to ready surreptitiously in order to avoid notice by one of my two stepsons. For a second consecutive night, my wife had not come home either, so I had access to the bathroom without concern that she would suddenly burst forth from her bedroom to use it.

When I was finally all set to go, my fully clothed weight (sans jacket) was just slightly below the 185-pound mark ─ almost negligibly so.

It was 2:23 a.m. once I was outside the locked front door and set to go under a lightly overcast sky ─ the air was tinged with a pleasant coolness. The cloud cover enhanced visibility in unlit areas due to reflected light ─ when the sky is perfectly clear, terrain with no artificial light sources is considerably darker. Thus, I am able to see my way with more clarity under a cloudy sky.

"Authorities" who never go walking in the dark can dispute that all they may like, but it is true. Just in the black alleyway beside our home, on nights with clear skies, I am at risk of stumbling over obstacles like cement Jersey barriers that might have been shifted from their usual resting places as can sometimes occur; but when the sky is overcast, I can see them quite distinctly and negotiate them without using a flashlight.

The same is true of forest trails. With a clear sky, the trails are almost impossible to make out; but if the sky is overcast, the way may still be gloomy, but at least I am able to discern the trail and its twists and turns without use of a flashlight.

Anyway, I had my usual stop three or so blocks from home at an elementary school playground for some exercise, doffing my jacket to have the usual number of repetitions for the half dozen sets of pull-ups and chin-ups I engaged: 7-2-3-3-2-2.

I always open with a pair of sets of pull-ups, then a pair of sets of chin-ups; the final two sets are pull-ups between a pair of gymnastics-style rings. I hold the final pull-up for a 30-count, although I am failing by then.

And I close with a dozen slow, full-range decline push-ups on a sloping cement ramp.

But this time, later into my walk ─ at least 1½ miles into it ─ I had just left Green Timbers Way and was proceeding along 96th Avenue (Google Map) eastward, or to the right as you look at that map.

There is only a sidewalk along the 'top' part of 96th Avenue. As I was approaching Willow Trail, I could see something laying out on the avenue. My hope was that it was not some unfortunate critter, but only debris of some nature.

Even when I drew abreast of it, I could still not make out just what it was, so I ventured down a narrow strip of mowed greenery between the sidewalk and the avenue, and then recognized that I was looking at a freshly killed owl.

It deserved better than to just be left there to be obliterated by ever increasing traffic, for at this point it was only around 3:15 a.m., so I decided to fetch its body and leave it on the strip of greenery.

At that point I was almost at the mouth of Willow Trail.

When I lifted the owl by its two feet, its wings limply flared out quite magnificently. As yet, it did not seem to have been run over ─ it had only been struck once by whatever vehicle killed it.

I noticed a quite wide possible aluminum band around one of its lower legs just above the foot, so it had been tagged at some point in its short life.

If I had brought a plastic bag with me, I would have placed the owl into it and carried it with me in the gym bag I was carrying that contained my Titan baton flashlight (and stun gun), but I had nothing like that. I felt myself with scant choice but to abandon the bird.

Only afterwards as I was walking towards 148th Street did it occur to me that I could have used my cellphone to photograph the bird and even its leg band. But by this time, I did not feel like retracing my steps because my walk tends to be long enough.

However, I resolved to try and remember to research at home somewhere that I could send an E-mail notification about the owl.

I was to get back home at 4:28 a.m., but remained outside a while to water front yard garden plants. Then once into the house, I got distracted responding to someone's earlier E-mail.

I finally did remember my project, and actually located an E-mail address for the Surrey Nature Centre ─ as you can see on this Google Map, it is on Green Timbers Way and only a short distance from where I had found the owl.

So at 5:47 a.m., I sent off this message:

I doubt that anyone will see this in time for it to matter, but on an early a.m. walk I saw a freshly killed owl on 96th Avenue quite near to Green Timbers Way. 

The time was around 3:15 a.m. 

Rather than leave the unfortunate creature to just get juiced by the traffic that would soon be thick along there, I carried it off to the grassy strip between the sidewalk and the avenue. 

The bird ─ probably a barred owl ─ had a metal band around one lower leg. 

I never thought until after I was on my way in the direction of 148th Street that I should have maybe tried photographing it with my cellphone ─ perhaps there was an identifier on the band that might have significance to someone. 

If a coyote or some other scavenger hasn't desecrated or 'stolen' the body by the time you see this, I left the owl on the grassy strip on the avenue side of the sidewalk, and almost across from the mouth of Willow Trail.

I did get a reply at 8:43 a.m.:

Thank you for your email. It is really helpful for us to know this information, and I have passed it on to Parks staff who deal with biodiversity and wildlife.

Thank you for your concern about wildlife in our parks!

However, my conclusion was that it would be highly unlikely that the owl would still be where I left it. There is nothing but forest on both sides of 96th Avenue in that area, so coyote or other predation by something not unwilling to claim an easy opportunity for an ample meal, is most likely ─ it was already 5½ hours later by this point, and only growing later.

Even if the body had not been disturbed by a coyote or even passing pedestrians (someone might just toss the body into the woods, not realizing that a "Parks" official would conceivably be seeking to locate the bird).

Or infernal crows could well have desecrated the body.

Whatever the case, I am not ever going to know, for I do not expect that I shall be hearing back from anybody who might have gone searching for the bird at the location I had given.

I think that it was around 6:20 a.m. by the time I returned to bed for a little further sleep, rising around two hours later.

I was to gain possession of the T.V. after 9 a.m. because my brother did not emerge from his bedroom prior to then.

We were to watch just one video on T.V. via our Android TV Box ─ an excellent 1¾-hour interview published yesterday by Odessa Orlewicz: The CARD The Canadian Judges PULL To Avoid Having To LOOK At The Science- Important Interview & Message With Tom Marazzo.

An Important Interview With Tom Marazzo- Author Of The People's Emergency Act. How The Canadian Courts Get Away With Not Having To LOOK At The Science, The Importance Of Staying Unified, And Remembering What The Canadian Flag Stands For." The last third is especially important for those Canadian leaders that stood for freedom the past 4 years. https://a.co/d/17Zpq5J To see Tom's Epic Book and Tom's Substack: https://tommarazzo.substack.com

I felt that this video was good enough to post about on Facebook, so I did that.

The morning grew progressively sunny rather quickly. My brother sought bed rest shortly after 11 a.m., for he would later be busing off to rendezvous at a pub with one or two drinking buddies. He was still home when I claimed my nap well into the noon hour after I enjoyed a meal.

This was a bath day, so sunning was off the books. I do not have the time to sun, blog, and bath ─ I just do not have the time for everything. I also want to get out for an evening walk of some description so that I can later sit up and watch at least one of our shows with my brother once we are both back home.

We are actually both home now, for he unexpectedly showed up around 7:40 p.m. To do so as early as that on a bus day means that he probably got bombed fast, for he generally has to take two buses in each direction.

Whatever the case, despite his presence downstairs with the T.V. on, I watched Magnum P.I. ─ episode 16 ("Run With the Devil" "Suffer Little Children") of final season five ─ here on my bedside computer while enjoying a can of Cariboo Malt (8% alcohol).

The episode was definitely a good one.

And it played flawlessly at this OK.ru link, although there were Turkish or Arabic or some similar subtitling across mid-screen instead of down low and unobtrusively.

It is presently 8:52 p.m., and the walk is still on, so I am going to commence readying. I would prefer it to be a little darker than presently.