Essays

Moseying: Exploring the Natural World

Agave stalk visitors
May 9, 2004

An old agave bloom stalk is a wonderful addition to a garden, as it gives birds a place to perch. Deborah and I salvaged one, and stood it up by placing a length of drillstem pipe into the ground and fitting its mostly hollow pith over the pipe. It had finally fallen after standing four years after it bloomed, which happened 15 years after it was planted. Folks call them century plants, believing they only bloom once every hundred years.

During the time the bloomstalk remained above the offsets of the original plant, a ladderbacked woodpecker had carved out a wintertime roost hole. This hole featured our first visitors this spring.

“Burr – a little bird just went into the hole!” In mid-March Deborah and I were sitting at the dining table eating lunch, and she had claimed the seat that faced directly out the window. I turned, but as I did, she said, “It just left, and went into the cenizo.” I watched for a few minutes, and suddenly two small birds begin “jitterbugging” at the edge of the gray leaved bushes. “Bewick’s wrens – they are picking flies or gnats off of the leaves.”

Bewick’s wrens are brownish, with white lines over their eyes. They cock their tail at a 50 degree angle from the plane of their body when excited and curious, and their bodies twitch this way and that way continually. “I had heard the male singing this morning when I walked in the early morning fog, and had hoped that meant a pair were present. We have not had them nest here in a dozen years – they used the wren box in the shade house that time, but never returned.”

One bird returned to the agave stalk and flew directly into the hole. The other, the male, flew to one of the branches of the bloomstalk, and began singing. We were glad that the door was open to catch a breeze, for the song is an exuberant celebration that instantly lightens the heart. All during lunch, the two skittered about, in and out of the hole, to the cenizo (Texas sage), and to the “bird stump” (a feeding station made from the upper roots and base of an old dead tree, which has dozens of crannies in which to place wild bird chow.)

At supper that evening Deborah again pointed out activity on the agave stalk. “Those doves – have they no shame – look at them.” Again I turned to look, but what I saw were two mourning doves sitting side by side, taking turns rubbing head against shoulder, and then sweet “billing,” touching beak to beak blissfully.

The next morning was overcast and wet. Since it was a weekend morning we had not left the bed, not even to fix the morning coffee or fetch the paper. The day before a stray black kitten had demanded that it become part of our household. We were watching it irritate our other cats. The 17 year old female cat only glowered from her wicker basket and blanket bed, but the big 6 year old male (Mindy) was stalking about the bedroom, yowling in irritation and disgust, finally hopping up to the windowsill.

When Mindy suddenly began staring outside, I looked for the object of his gaze. A huge great horned owl sat on one the lower branches of the agave stalk, its feathers bedraggled from the steady sprinkling rain. A growling rumble of thunder seemed to make it lift its feathers, swelling its body almost twice size, and then it shook vigorously like a wet dog. “Oh my! Oh my!” I nudged Deborah, and pointed out the window. “On the agave – Look!”

The owl began steadily lowering and raising its head in a steady pumping bobbing motion, and then leaned from side to side. “It is staring at Mindy. Will it hurt the cats?” Deborah’s first response was concern. “The kids that visit Sibley have torn apart ten thousand owl pellets but we have only found hair of larger animals once, and that time it was skunk hair,” I answered.

“Can an owl carry a cat? Mindy weighs 15 pounds.” But as Deborah spoke, her eyes brightened in worry. “The kitten and Choza hardly weigh but a third of that.” Her train of thought stimulated a sudden realization for me. “You know, we have not seen a cottontail in the yard for weeks, and the jackrabbit conventions east of the arboretum grove are no longer occurring, either. We know an owl has visited here regularly since last fall, for we have seen it flying away as we drive away in the morning, and a few weeks ago, it sat on the shadehouse for an hour one evening. I have been finding pellets throughout the grove.”

Deborah shivered. “You know, now I understand why some cultures consider owls omens of death – possibly from the fact that they can kill domesticated pets or fowl. We have heard stories of la lechuza a number of times. Sometimes an owl hanging about means a death will soon occur in the family, and sometimes an owl is considered a transfigured witch who has come to do the family harm.” We watched the owl as it lifted one foot and twisted its body to face the other way, and slowly slid the lifted foot along the branch of the agave to grasp it again, after briefly fumbling for the perch.

“I prefer its image as a symbol of wisdom. Maybe when an owl visits, the powers that be are affirming a recent epiphany a person experienced.” The owl repeated its head motions. “It must be moving its head to pinpoint sounds – it is looking down in the meadow lawn – I wonder if there is a little mouse squiggling through the sideoats grama by the firepit?” The owl leaned forward, farther and farther, until we knew it would fly, but instead of dropping to the ground it flapped once and glided into the Afghan pines by the driveway, where it perched on a branch directly above the sunflower seeds spread on the “chat” (finely ground caliche) road surface.

As it landed, the multispecies flock of mourning doves, whitewinged doves, cardinals, pyrrhuloxias, house finches, and whitecrowned sparrows on the driveway panicked in every direction – 75 birds vanishing in the blink of an eye. “It must have been hoping for an injured or diseased bird. When we examine owl pellets at Sibley, we have discovered meadowlark and dove skulls.” The owl returned to the agave stalk, but a crashing explosive thunder roll made it move again, up against the trunk of the Chinese pistache, but under one of its upper framework branches. For a few minutes the rain came down much harder. It remained in the tree until after noon, its face following our movements in the house.

When we ventured outside to continue our spring clean up of the garden, cutting the perennials back to new growth, the owl did not fly until we were within 15 feet of its perch. And even then, it merely flew to another part of the grove. Great horned owls nest in late winter, and should be feeding almost grown young in March. The Gone Native Arboretum’s tree grove has proved to be a productive hunting ground for this one. As it has become much more visible, the worry that it has hopes of a dietary change to feline meat has added a new dimension to life in the garden.