I have always thought of myself as a refugee from the clutter and decay of population centers. We live thirty-five miles from the nearest store; thirty-five barren miles is what I was searching for when I moved here. It is something of an animal oasis, a utopian community for people, dogs, and birds. But this COVID winter has threatened our tranquility.
For years my routine has been to wake up at 4:30 or 5:00, coffee up, and take the dogs for a walk before I begin my morning chores. Currently, there are four dogs that greet me as I walk past the bird feeder smothered by a hundred goldfinches, under the giant cottonwood trees, past the homing pigeon coop, and approach the kennels and the falcon mews.
I tie the falcons out in their weathering yard where they stay until I’m back from our walk and ready to exercise them. The dogs leap and bark their heads off until I turn them loose and they chase each other around the grassland that is cordoned off to form a large front yard.
When I turn toward the driveway all four dogs freeze and watch me as if I am a rooster pheasant that has walked into their territory. They are intent and I make them wait. When I tell them “all right,” they explode, up the driveway and under those big old cottonwoods.
The dogs and I walk up the road until we’ve gone a couple miles. They, of course, cover much more ground than I do. They search the desolate snow drifts for a whiff of a quail, a grouse, a pheasant. They long to hear the sound of a shotgun.
For the last forty years I have spent at least part of every winter in New Mexico at the home of probably my best friend. His big, beautiful, and desolate ranch is one of my favorite places on Earth. He and his family give me a place to sleep and enough peace and quiet to do some writing, but the main draw—beside the fact that New Mexican winters are much warmer than those on the Northern Plains— is that my friend’s ranch is full of birds for the dogs to point and the falcons to chase. For forty years I haven’t had to take the dogs for winter walks. For forty years the dogs, falcons, and I have gotten our exercise by doing what they live for.
But this year there could be no soul-saving quail hunt in New Mexico. This year, I’ve been reminded that we are getting older, a fact that put me and my best friend in the population of Americans at high risk during the pandemic. Who knows what bug I could catch driving for twenty hours down the center line of the country? Who knows what dangers I could bring to New Mexico with me?
So, I’ve been imprisoned here on this cold and lonely ranch. Mostly it’s one gray day after the next. Even the dogs have begun to feel the strain. Lately, Calvin and Shiner, a pair of English Setters who are big buddies when they hunt together, stop halfway up the driveway and go stiff legged as they circle each other, growling and threatening to mix it up.
It’s enough to make a guy consider murder—if there was only someone to murder.
Earlier this fall, on one of those morning walks with the dogs, I happened to look up at the huge, old snag in one of our biggest cottonwoods. My eyes were drawn to a hole in an enormous, rotting branch in the ancient tree. Over the years, I have seen starlings, raccoons, a couple wood ducks, and one wayward fox squirrel emerge from that hole. But that morning at the beginning of this insufferable winter, I saw a ball of silver brown fluff. It was really too far away to make a positive ID but I was pretty sure that it was the tiny Eastern screech owl that I’d been hearing in the evenings. SIBLEY’S GUIDE TO BIRDS puts the weight of an Eastern screech at just six ounces, but when I’d spotted him, he filled that gaping hole, perfectly camouflaged against the dead wood so that you’d never know there was an opening. I named him Homer Hoot.
Over the course of walking the dogs this fall and winter, I’ve seen Homer come and go. He’ll be in his hole for day or two and then he’ll disappear for long stretches of time. I don’t usually think much about Homer’s absence because he always returns. I go about my morning tasks whether he is there to supervise or not. I put the dogs back in their kennels, feed them, and put the falcons out on their blocks.
My last chore of the morning is to feed the pigeons and let them out to fly. The pigeon loft has an 8x12 hole cut out that gives the birds the freedom to come and go from the loft, and there are one-way bobbers that can swing down over the hole to lock the pigeons inside. Usually, when I open the loft door, there is mad flutter of wings as twenty pigeons shift to prime perches for getting out first.
But this morning all the pigeons sat perfectly still. No pigeon moved. I got a creepy feeling and looked down at the floor. A big, black-and-white male pigeon was on the floor. He lay motionless. His head had been severed and was nowhere to be found.
It was like a horror movie. As I slowly raised my eyes, I expected organ music. But there was no monster, just horrified pigeons. Suddenly a tiny, silver-brown stirring caught my attention, and two very serious, large yellow eyes materialized from an odd puff of feathers on a pigeon perch. It was Homer—guilty as sin.
“He had found someone to murder,” I told the dogs. He must have snuck into the loft through the bobbers and found himself trapped. When Homer killed the pigeon, he’d been punching over his weight. His victim weighed twice as much as he did, but the frustration of this long winter must have given him the strength of a superhero.
When I caught him with a net and lifted him out with my hand, he bit me and footed me with tiny talons that barely drew blood. Before I let him go, I held him for a few extra seconds and felt his heart beating. It seemed as big as an eagle’s.
39 comments
Dan I’m glad he didn’t get em all. Going to need another couple pigeons this fall. I’m equally glad that you finally got to use that title for your blog except that I was hoping for the “discount tent”, but who wants to sleep on the ground;)
Thanks.
Thank you Dan. Love this story. I’m at the age where it is difficult to take my 13 year old English Setter hunting. I am in TN and there are few places to hunt. English setters are the best! Have had them since I can remember. Thanks for letting the owl free. You both needed that. May the good Lord protect you and your buddies.
I love your writing (and your meat) and rarely comment but this is my favorite.
So fun to read about life on the high Plains.
Thanks
Dan, I always love your stories and pictures. Thank you for sharing them with us folk who live too close to the city and don’t get into the country as much as we would like. It’s been a long, tough winter. I hope spring arrives for you soon.
For an owl, he was rather polite. Only took one pigeon. We have them whinnying near the house most summers, but I never found the roost.
Hello Dan, your old, literally, friend Jean chiming in to say, loved this. Here’s to spring, which arrives in fits and starts. And time, which is a mystery.
no matter what words of yours I happen to read, a spontaneous smile breaks out bringing a swift end to the mundane. been too long without Dan around here. how’s the new work shaping up? bet it’s gonna be fantastic for all of us, whatever it is.
Bet those pigeons were mighty glad when you stepped in the door!
Great Story Dan , I found a little screech own on the side of the road in a rainstorm, his/her eyes in the headlight. I took him home, put him in my Raftered Shop for a few days, the he found a way out and was gone.
I can feel tour love of nature in your stories.
Hi Dan,
Thanks for sharing your wonderful life with us, and I really enjoyed every last word and picture. I am 83 now myself, and yes I had to slow down a lot too. I thought over the whole vaccine thing a lot, and read a lot about the “side effects” of the vaccines, and I went and got both shots of the Moderna Vaccine. All I had was a slightly sore shoulder the next day, and that was probably just from having the needle shoved into my arm. The Moderna vaccine is supposed to be 95% effective, so I feel a lot safer now. Also I sure don’t want to get sick and accidentally give the virus to someone else.
I just loved your whole story today, and I felt like I was walking with you the whole time enjoying your experiences. I really liked the little owl part of your story. God has given you the wonderful chance to do all that you have done to help all the creatures and the land and all us humans to be more natural and more healthy, and I want you to know that I appreciate learning from you and eating 1/4 pound of your buffalo every single day. It has helped my health very much for many years now, and I totally appreciate all your work and your writing and pictures too. You and Jill are saints, and all of your work has been done in service to God and all of us who eat your buffalo and enjoy your pictures and words.
I put you and all your family and co-workers in the arms of God.
You and Jill have been very dear friends of mine for many years indeed.
Love, Don
Oops, I did some owl homework. The owls I’ve been hearing are great horned owls! There’s a mating pair talking to each other, a lower pitched hoot by the male, followed by a higher pitched answer from the female. It’s very soothing to listen to them. The Eastern screech owl sounds much different, but still beautiful. The diversity of nature is astounding, isn’t it?
Thank you, Dan. A lovely read. Sorry you didn’t make it down here to NM this winter, but I thank you for that, too. Hugs to all.