Why the Garden of Owls?

It might be because I have this really cool photo of a Barred Owl couple hanging out in the backyard on New Years Day morning - like they are out for a special brunch (good pickings in the compost pile below). It might be a play on Garden of Eden. It might be that I like the way it sounds.

It really does go back to these Owls that visit my yard. They were so present and visible for a year or so that I began to refer to them as my Owls. They visited often, sometimes sleeping on the branch, protected by the bamboo leaves. They looked back at me through the binocular lenses with their big Owl eyes. One even flew closer to the tree next to the house and peered at me peering at her.

Animals have these distinct and real lives, personalities, behaviors. They communicate with each other, owl to owl and species to species. They see us - but how often do we stop to see them? The owls in the backyard reminded me to stop. To observe. To be in the present. The gift of nature is that beauty can be found so easily - and a shopping cart not filled, not a dollar spent or a carbon equivalent burned.

It takes only time to watch the birds.

To stop and watch the birds is to learn more about the complex system happening all around us. And at times in spite of us. Understanding this system exists can help us see the connections between our actions and our impacts. Understanding these connections I think can help us rethink our actions that we might feel as “normal” but have a disruptive and destructive element to this ecological balance happening all around us. For example rat poison is sold in stores so it must be okay right? And yet a poisoned rat eaten by an Owl or by an Eagle results in the downstream unintended death. Its a disruption of the ecosystem within which we need to return to being a part of - instead of trying to dominate it.

And so my goal for the Garden of Owls is having an understanding of this balance, for creating an environment where nature can thrive. Where the Owls and the Fox can visit my yard. That the moles that dig those holes that bring balance to the soil by churning it up, can in turn be balanced by Owl and Fox.

And so the Owls calls at dusk remind me to stop - and think - and check myself, have I added to the balance or taken away from the balance?