Blustery

It's a wet, blustery autumn day. I can see the rain going sideways through the office window looking out over the valley. Looking out the kitchen window that faces the back garden against the hillside, I see confetti of yellow leaves. Not drifting lazily down, I can tell you, but flying around manically like bright yellow bats.

We've got a healthy population of bats around Oban. Every evening we see them, even before dusk when you might expect them. There is one who is always circling around the streetlight at the end of our driveway, drawn to the bugs which are drawn by the light. It's a good hangout for a bat. But still it seems like slightly odd, domesticized behavior.

In the forest behind our house we have tawny owls. In the spring their calling sounded like it was right above the house. But tawny owls are everywhere around here--we hear them up the glen and down in the marsh. There are plenty of mice too (I won't mention what we've done to the ones that tromp around on our ceiling or in the walls and keep us up at night).

Down the road there are some giant old beeches and one night as we ran past a tawny owl swooped out of one of the huge, stately trees and flew ahead of us along the road. It landed in a convenient branch and allowed us to admire it in the failing light. So lovely. What is it about night animals that gives them a sense of mystery, awe, magic. Legends tell us these animals have special powers.

A trail up in the glen opposite led us one night (a few weeks ago) toward a hill viewpoint across fields of horses churned into rough seas of mud by their hooves. We didn't made it to the top because it was getting dark, but we followed the vaguely posted trail as it meandered over fields and bogs. The sky held the streaming golden soup of sunset in its bowl of mountains. Cloud croutons floated on the surface. (Silly, I know, but I was hungry.)

In the thickening dusk we cupped our hands to whistle owl calls to the owls that we could hear hooting to each other. One over there, one behind us, one in those trees at the bottom. We called and giggled and stumbled over tussocks of grass. The owls hooted back.

What were they saying to us? "Pardon me, I didn't quite catch that?" or "Fuck you, this is my hill, get the hell off it!" Or, "Hey cutie, I've got a nice tree here, care for a snog?"

We figured it was probably one of those.