Me' n Alice

Hard times require furious dancing ~~ Alice Walker

I danced last night for the first time in months. I mean, really danced ~~ an outside band, leaping flames and teepee shadows amidst a fair share of drunks and stoners. It was only a matter of time. I'd taken to getting into my truck, sliding my favorite cd into the player and heading down a gravel road, as if on a trial run. A fav tune hit and I pulled over, cranked it up, jumped from the truck and danced in the road. My girlfriends know this about me. They've joined me. Even in the rain.

I wonder if this jailbreak of energy is what forced the phone to ring at 6:00 a.m.; Sandra from Thailand. Renee emailed her new poem from Dolores, CO; Em departed from a Mexico beach, on her way home to AZ. I miss my spirit sisters.

I feel doily-delicate on this pewter gray day. I'm not sure why I'm in Montana. Wolves and owls. Retreat on the Fisher River. The nesting nuthatch outside the window. I grow as attached to landscape and wild critters as I do humans. May be more. My soul plopped down and here I am.

Meanwhile, girlfriend ghosts materialize through a ringing phone and my email inbox. Johanna in Boise. Babette in Cortez. Susan in Santa Fe. Carole in Kaslo. What does it mean when Facebook becomes the conduit for community? There's no replacement for flesh. I can not smoke a cigar and grin into the eyes of Babette.

I would hop into my truck and point south, except these days a thousand miles is exorbitantly expensive. Driving on a whim used to be easy. I sit, instead, in space of no answers, not lonely, but longing. The muse is lip-smacking giddy. I want to kick her in the shins.

Entering Owldom

It took several hours to drive from Libby to the Owl Research Institute near Charlo, MT. I was on my way to join Denver Holt and his seasoned assistants on the Long-eared Owl study. I relished the solo road trip down gravel roads along the swift-flowing Thompson River. I turned east onto Highway 200 and followed the impressive Clark Fork and Flathead Rivers; detoured across the Bison Range and arrived at his home and research center late afternoon. For a birder, paradise.

I was smack dab in the middle of thousands of waterbirds, raptors, songbirds and owls in the Nine Pipes Wildlife Refuge, so named for the Flathead Indian family. Birds on water, birds on wing, air exploding with calls and song. Denver had mentioned that I could stay in his writer's cabin. That, alone, was cause for excitement. I had no way of knowing, however, that this cabin was perched Thoreau-like, at the edge of a small pond. Across the pond were mature, newly-leafed willows and a tangle of tree snags. On those snags was a great horned owl family -- parents and two chicks -- who, according to Denver, spent the days and nights hopping around the branches, testing wings and balance.

There are 250 owl species in the world. There are 19 in Canada and US; of those, 15 are found in Montana. That's more than any other state. Great horned owls are ubiquitous across the North America, but to see them close, outside my window, was a game changer. One night I watched for four hours until darkness stole my view. So happens, that was the night the larger one learned to fly.

The mother had been hanging out with the chicks all day; the father showed up at dusk, whereupon mom departed and returned within minutes with a bloody body of a white feathered bird. She landed on a bare branch several feet from the chicks, making them come to her. She gave the bird to the larger chick for a few moments, then embarked on a tug-of-war to take it back. She then shredded it and fed the larger chick. The flesh disappeared down the gullet as Dad showed up with a vole. The larger chick quickly swallowed it, as the smaller chick looked on from a branch above. Then, mom showed up again, this time landing in a snag across the pond. The challenge was clear: fly to eat, and fly he did. Once the larger chick passed his flight test, the parents returned to the original tree and fed the smaller one. It was obviously not his time to fly yet.

I was witness to a flawlessly choreographed lesson. For the next two days I joined Denver and his team banding long-eared owls near Missoula, complete with its own set of miracles. Yet, I could not wait to return to watch 'my' family. By the second evening, both chicks flew tree to tree. For the first time ever, I witnessed chicks perched side by side, leaning, preening and playing with one another as mom looked on and stood watch from the tip of a high dead limb.

The newsworthy part of my sojourn was the long-eared owls. But it was the writer's cabin on the pond that stole my heart, and the owls whooooo, I swear, recognized me and began to show off by the time I  departed four days later.