an owl crosses my path

To better understand this little event, I need to share something relevant. At the end of last summer I had seen so many owls, that I needed a way to quantify what I was seeing. It was exasperating, and finally I overtly stated to the universe that I would only pay attention to owls that CROSSED MY PATH. I said it out loud as a declaration. For reasons unknown, right after that, all my owl sightings involved them crossing my path.

There is a bike path right in front of my house that goes straight into the center of the little town I call home. Two days ago, in the late afternoon I saw my old girlfriend from exactly a decade ago, she was jogging with a her three kids the bike path (I’ll call her Carol, not her real name). Two of her children were on bikes and the youngest was in a stroller. I rode my bike slowly along side Carol, and we chatted. Her only daughter (about 8 years old) was on a bike a little ways in front of us.

At one point, her little son said he had cold hands and she pulled out a pair of gloves for him - and at the same time we both realized that I had given her those gloves as a gift a decade ago!

We both talked about all the animals we had seen recently (moose, badgers, coyotes, foxes) and I told her that I’ve been seeing a LOT of owls. Less than two minutes later I saw an owl fly ACROSS OUR PATH and land on a low branch in a tree just a little ways in front of us. I was the only one who saw it, and in the way the bike path turned, I only caught a brief glimpse. This happened near a bridge in small stretch of cottonwoods. I whispered to the two children who didn't see it, and we all quietly walked toward the tree until we were right up close. It was right next to the Teton Creek, right along side of the bike path.

It was a handsome Great Horned Owl, a little less than 18" tall. It had those iconic "cat" tufts that look like ears, and electric bright yellow eyes. This was an unusual sighting in the daylight, and I think this is as close as I have ever been to a perched owl. I'm not kidding, it was probably 15 feet from where we stood on the bike path!

It stared down at us for about a minute, and then casually flew off. It felt like it was posing for us. Everything about the experience was beautiful.

I'll add after the owl flew off, the daughter was asking over and over and over, "Mom, do you love Mike?" This wasn't awkward at all, it was entirely endearing.

Carol and her daughter (who was right up close to the owl in the tree) both show up in the fourth posting on this blog. My friend Kristy held this little girl's hand on the hiking trail the morning after we saw the 3 owls (the first time) in 2006. I’ll add that we all saw a big beautiful moose that morning!

Carol shows up HERE too, in an experience that I can only call psychic.

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