What a Hoot!

So tonight Mom went out to tend chickies really late and she heard a sound in their fenced-in run. She thought maybe it was the little pheasant hen that hangs around trying to find a way in all the time (people who raise birds in a pen and then set them free should know what it does to them psychologically.) But instead she found and caught this:

I know!














So Cute!












It was a pygmy owl! She told me to run and get the camera and held the poor baby while I took pictures. When you stroked his little head he would close those big eyes and his eyelids were covered in downy feathers that looked like long lashes. I asked him if his name was Pig (from Harry Potter .. Ron's little owl Pigwidgeon?) and he would bat those eyes, so I took that as a yes. Mom said his talons were very very sharp and he would try to nibble her to let him go. After the photo shoot she just set him on the porch rail and he took off into the night. We were in awe.