These are the first three pictures I took this evening. But what a great story!
I went out at about 7:45pm and there was no visible owlet in the nest hole. Daphne was front and center, on a lower and less-protected branch than usual, so I cooed at her for a minute. And then I turned to go inside, and out of the corner of my eye discovered that Leia had made a break for it! So that’s picture one, 7:53:07pm.
I texted that picture to all the neighborhood suspects. A moment later, Neighbor K and Neighbor Linus appeared on their porch, which has direct line of sight to the nest hole. K said, “Aw, I missed her coming out.” I said, “No, look, she’s right there!” and pointed at Leia. I took a frantic second picture of Leia, rushing to capture the milestone without really paying attention to what I was photographing. That’s picture two, 8:03:56pm.
Neighbor K pointed at the tree and looked a little confused. (I should add that her range of vision is blocked by her porch roof, so she really couldn’t see Leia.) K said, “So you’re saying she came out and then went back in for the night? Because she’s–“
I swear my slow brain processed what was happening before K actually finished saying “right there.” I think I squeed. And I probably covered the feet I needed to move with a single bound, so I could see them both. And that’s picture three, 8:05:20pm, which is the world’s first photograph of Rey.
It wasn’t until Daphne LEFT that I realized she was sitting next to Leia. And in going back and looking at these pictures, we can clearly see that she wasn’t sitting next to Leia in the first shot. So somewhere in the sixty seconds not captured, Daphne flew through the field of vision of three adults who were looking intently at the general area of her flight… and none of us saw her do it.
These creatures, y’all!
