By David Horst sandhill7@gmail.com
SEYMOUR – My dad is a retired operating engineer – crane operator in more common language – so when I got to go to work with him, it was quite an adventure.
This was well before the structured “Take Your Daughter or Son to Work Day” existed. I suspect now that it was more mom’s “Get Davie Out of My Hair Day.” Her job was taking care of the house and family so every day was a take-me-to-work day for her.
Going with dad to change oil on a Saturday meant a day of climbing on the gravel pile, pulling the levers on big cranes and unpacking your sandwich in the work site shanty like the big guys. In short, it was the kind of day when good memories are built.
Abe Young had one
of those days last weekend. His dad is Mike
Young, a warden with the state Department of Natural Resources.
I’m sure there are plenty of days when there are said to Young that a 5-year-old shouldn’t hear, but this was different. On this day, Abe and his dad were going to release an owl.
Abe had also been along the day Young responded to a report of an injured great-horned owl in a residential neighborhood in Seymour. That was in mid-December.
The owl had suffered a head trauma, possibly from flying into a window or a structure. She had convalesced at The Feather Rehabilitation Center near New London and was ready to be released into the wild in the same Seymour neighborhood.
As Young and Pat Fisher of The Feather affixed an identification tag to the owl’s leg, Abe alternated between peering back at its wide eyes and sliding on a patch of ice on the driveway where we were parked.
Young held the owl firmly at the tops of its legs preparing for the release. The bird flapped its great wings, making Abe go wide-eyed.
Walking to the edge of the drive, Young pointed the owl in the direction of a nearby woods and tossed her skyward. The owl dipped down and then silently caught the air in her wide wingspan, lifting a dozen or so feet above the ground.
Despite the hint Young had given her, the owl flew not toward the woodlot, but into the front yard, where she disappeared into the branches of a spruce tree.
In a dank, artificially lit bureaucratic DNR office in Madison, a biologist might have viewed her as just an individual, an injured member of a species that isn’t endangered or even threatened.
Out here in the brisk, waning light of day, she is an individual, with value all her own.
Fisher doesn’t recognize the word “just” when it comes to injured birds. “It’s another living thing. I’m not into numbers,” she said.
Abe went all shyboy on me when I asked him what he would tell his friends in school about releasing the owl. He did confide that letting the owl go was even more fun than sliding on the ice.
His curiosity took over after I left. He asked his dad where the horns are on the great-horned owl. Dad explained it’s named for feathers on its head that look like horns.
“Why did it fly away from us daddy?” Abe wanted to know. Owls may be renowned for their night vision, but they can’t recognize the innocence in the face of a 5-year-old.
Young said Abe went to kindergarten the next day showing pictures and talking about the owl. I’m sure he’ll still talk about it when he tops 50 and reflects back on good memories built by going to work with dad.
SEYMOUR – My dad is a retired operating engineer – crane operator in more common language – so when I got to go to work with him, it was quite an adventure.
This was well before the structured “Take Your Daughter or Son to Work Day” existed. I suspect now that it was more mom’s “Get Davie Out of My Hair Day.” Her job was taking care of the house and family so every day was a take-me-to-work day for her.
Going with dad to change oil on a Saturday meant a day of climbing on the gravel pile, pulling the levers on big cranes and unpacking your sandwich in the work site shanty like the big guys. In short, it was the kind of day when good memories are built.
 |
| Warden Mike Young and son Abe. |
I’m sure there are plenty of days when there are said to Young that a 5-year-old shouldn’t hear, but this was different. On this day, Abe and his dad were going to release an owl.
Abe had also been along the day Young responded to a report of an injured great-horned owl in a residential neighborhood in Seymour. That was in mid-December.
The owl had suffered a head trauma, possibly from flying into a window or a structure. She had convalesced at The Feather Rehabilitation Center near New London and was ready to be released into the wild in the same Seymour neighborhood.
As Young and Pat Fisher of The Feather affixed an identification tag to the owl’s leg, Abe alternated between peering back at its wide eyes and sliding on a patch of ice on the driveway where we were parked.
Young held the owl firmly at the tops of its legs preparing for the release. The bird flapped its great wings, making Abe go wide-eyed.
Walking to the edge of the drive, Young pointed the owl in the direction of a nearby woods and tossed her skyward. The owl dipped down and then silently caught the air in her wide wingspan, lifting a dozen or so feet above the ground.
Despite the hint Young had given her, the owl flew not toward the woodlot, but into the front yard, where she disappeared into the branches of a spruce tree.
In a dank, artificially lit bureaucratic DNR office in Madison, a biologist might have viewed her as just an individual, an injured member of a species that isn’t endangered or even threatened.
Out here in the brisk, waning light of day, she is an individual, with value all her own.
Fisher doesn’t recognize the word “just” when it comes to injured birds. “It’s another living thing. I’m not into numbers,” she said.
Abe went all shyboy on me when I asked him what he would tell his friends in school about releasing the owl. He did confide that letting the owl go was even more fun than sliding on the ice.
His curiosity took over after I left. He asked his dad where the horns are on the great-horned owl. Dad explained it’s named for feathers on its head that look like horns.
“Why did it fly away from us daddy?” Abe wanted to know. Owls may be renowned for their night vision, but they can’t recognize the innocence in the face of a 5-year-old.
Young said Abe went to kindergarten the next day showing pictures and talking about the owl. I’m sure he’ll still talk about it when he tops 50 and reflects back on good memories built by going to work with dad.
No comments:
Post a Comment