The Winter Night Horror

I woke up the other day to another morning of sub zero temperatures and soon found out to my dismay that once again we had another frozen water pipe. The water started filling up in the tub while taking a shower and I knew where the freeze was in one of the two 20 foot runs under the house. My gray water is set up so I can take off any frozen section, bring it in the garage and thaw it out. I put on my Carharts, grabbed a headlamp, screw gun and snow shovel to dig my way through the snow to get to the crawl-space under the house. It was still pretty dark outside. I went out the garage door and as always took a quick look around for moose; nothing will wake you up faster than going out the door and run face to face with a moose! I started walking toward the back of the house without the flashlight on and noticed what I thought was one of the girls snow hats lying on the snow. I went over, bent forward and started to pick it up... that's when it lifted its head and looked at me with those big eyes. The owl then exploded into my face with a flurry of pounding wings and snow, an open screaming beak the size of a hatchback with teeth and at least 14" claws! I did a complete back flip while swinging at the beast with my snow shovel yelling some gibberish that was unrecognizable. I think I hit him at least 60 or 70 times... well OK, I missed him... how in the world do you miss an owl with a snow shovel? I stood there with my heart pounding as I watched "Rodan" fly off into the night carrying one of my vehicles off. Sharon watched all this from the kitchen window, laughing hysterically with Katie in her arms. Hey, she wasn't there! Fully awake now, I went on with my mundane chores.

Now, here's the rest of the story... that crazy owl came back to the same spot, and stayed there until almost noon. Have you ever seen an owl out in the middle of the day? Very seldom! He was watching a mouse hole in the snow at the edge of the driveway. Sharon said as she watched him from the window during the day, he took four mice out of that hole. By noon he had the shredded, mutilated bodies strewn around him in a bloody pile, this was the "Terminator" of owls, neither afraid of man nor snow shovel!

At about 10:00, I decided to get a picture of this crazy bird, so I put a knife between my teeth (for protection), a Canon camera to my face (so he wouldn't recognize me), got down on my belly, and crawled slowly using my toes and elbows, stealthily inching my way towards the beast till I was a mere three feet from his blood dripping beak... I don't think he even knew I was there; you look at the photo and tell me? Anyway, after risking my life, crawling on my belly to within 3 feet of the killer owl to get a close-up photo for proof, here he is in all his blood thirsty glory, ladies and gentleman, I give you... RODAN! What's that you say?... he doesn't look so scary to you... neither did that little white bunny in Monty Python's "In Search of the Holy Grail". Remember that little rabbit went through a whole army in less than a Dark Age minute!

The picture was taken before he had accumulated a substantial body count of dead mice piled around him. The snow around him was stained with blood, hair, entrails and a few mouse tails strewn about. We tried putting warmed hamburger near him, but he would not touch it. But I felt as safe as a drunken Eskimo trying to feed a starving polar bear a harp seal burger. He flew away for a short while, and while he was gone, I went out and put the hamburger in among the pieces of shredded mice. When he came back, he then started eating the hamburger, along with the remaining pieces of mice meat, which really surprised me.

Notice if you will, the cold calculating eyes, void of all emotion, the nonchalant body posture and how he tucks and hides his razor sharp beak into his feathered face and hides his massive claws in the snow to ease the fears of the naive. Make no mistake, one slip and you will be just as dead as that partial mouse that can be seen in the photo just left of beast... ahhh, those telltale subtleties, that once are pointed out make the whole picture come alive. No..., just sitting there in the snow he seems to pose no great threat, but having him beating your face and clawing for your eyes and screaming in your ears in the cold of the night while you're only half awake with a mere snow shovel to defend yourself with... you will come to know him for what he truly is.

My New Years resolutions; don’t pick up hats in the dark, carry extra Depends.

Vernon

Vernon Cross is a painter of nature and it's situations.
He is a longtime prospector and expert detectorist.
His work can be seen here: Vern Cross...Alaska Mining Artist