Attribution: Alan D. Wilson, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper began the day grappling with the question that has plagued him for the better part of his life: As he now lives amicably and supportive of all birds, can he erase that early part of his bird relationship when, as a farm boy with a .22 rifle he shot birds indiscriminately, even—and this is hard to confess even now—a snowy owl.
The image from that long ago winter day—the magnificent owl perched innocently on a pasture fence post, has not faded much over the past 80 years or so.
There were other occasions when birds fell to earth, once even an American Bittern shot in flight over Peterson’s pond. That image too still shows in vivid color.
So that is the penance, to watch the sparrows and finches at the birdbath this morning and then to see yet again the images of a beautiful owl tumbling off a fence post and a graceful bittern cartwheeling down with a broken wing.
