Little Owl to the rescue

Yesterday the sun was shining (it’s not now!) so we headed out into the garden. Big Dreamer mowed the lawn and I made the brave choice of planting many of my seedlings out. It felt an even braver move after our next door neighbour commented, “I don’t know why you go to all that effort if you’re just going to put them out to let them die.” Oh dear.

In amongst all this Little Owl was pottering about with her mini watering can when she discovered a worm on the doorstep. She gave him a thorough watering and when that didn’t seem to help she called me over. Very carefully I picked him up and put him in her cupped hand to put back on some soil. Little Owl didn’t like the thought of him going on soil and opted for the wall instead. I tried to explain that the soil was better because if we left him on the wall the birds might eat him. Well, that was entirely the wrong thing to say. She scanned the skies in horror. In the far distance a crow was wheeling and she began to yell and stamp her feet at it in defence of the worm. In spite of my attempts to undo the trouble I’d caused Little Owl continued to monitor the airspace above the farm. Then I hit upon a new idea…the worm needed a house! Little Owl was open to this suggestion and we created a little structure out of grass and twigs. She continued to act as sentinel until it was time to go in. She only stopped then because I lifted the roof off and pointed out that the worm was long gone.