A recent snowstorm with winds and freezing rain brought back the memory of one bird and his remarkable homing instinct. His name was Horton, a beautiful great horned owl that my sisters and I found one April day during
a hike that took us far from our property line.

The mature bird had a broken wing and was unafraid as we approached him near the edge of the woods we were leaving. We knew that injured wild animals should be left alone, or we could call a Conservation officer. Patrice, the elder of us at fourteen, picked him up with a gloved hand and that was it, the four of us trooped home.

His left wing was useless, but Horton could rise up and shrug out his shoulders to frightening proportions. We kept him in the basement where he would walk and climb about, and he was quite content to remain under
the pool table when it was in use. He could still catch mice, and a squeal or a crashing from below our living room floor encouraged our rehabilitative hopes.

We didn’t handle him much, but could easily approach him, as we often did to seek wise council or to collect a pellet. (To this day, I have trouble telling the difference.) When the great horned owl hooted from his stone-walled basement, the booming notes resonated through the oaken floors and filled
the house with a soul chilling sound that seemed to come from everywhere. Seven hoots to answer a relative roosting nearby.

As summer came to an end, it was decided to give Horton, whose fame had spread via newspapers and grapevine, to a neighbor who could take better care of him. The man wanted to use Horton as bait to hunt crows. The
black marauders despise owls and will mob them whenever they can. The man would tether their most hated of all owls, the great horned
owl, to a stump and have some good shooting.

The colors of fall turned to winter’s black and white and blue. A storm crashed in from the east, lots of drifting snow and on the second day, freezing rain. That evening, Dad heard a scratching against the first floor bedroom window overlooking the porch. Thinking a limb had dropped from the weight of ice, he went to investigate. He was greeted by Horton, on his back, with his talons ready to tangle. The owl was wet, and in a most decidedly bad mood. The flightless bird had escaped who knows when and walked miles home. Here was a crippled bird, with so much against him, finding his way back to safety. We were awestruck by this display of never giving up, or, as my sister’s gushed, eternal love.

After a few nights in the basement, we put Horton in the old chicken coop where he feasted on mice. The old bird never got over his bad mood. We’d leave corn to attract soon-to-be owl food, and could get near him, but he had
changed. When he died a few months later, my sisters and I gave him a secret funeral under a blossoming pear tree.