Karma

Karma is a theory of moral causation that is prevalent in many of the religions that originated in or around ancient India. While I do not really prescribe to any of these religions, or any particular religion at all for that matter, I do believe in the basic principle of karma and back on May 3rd I got my own little taste of karma. It was the day after The Raptor Center's Spring Raptor Release and I decided to head back to Hyland Park to search for a great horned owl nest that one of the other volunteers had told me was located in the park.

From what I was told the nest was located somewhere near the walking trail on the south side of Hyland Lake. So when I arrived I decided to head west around the lake. I had not walked very far when I noticed a large black bird in tree further down the path. I guessed right away that it was a crow but it appeared a bit strange. It was flapping its wings a lot but did not fly away so I thought that perhaps it had something that it was eating. As I got closer I found that the bird was actually in trouble. It had somehow gotten itself rapped up in fishing line and was now caught in a tree. There obviously did not appear to me any way that this bird was likely to free itself so I decided to head back to the visitor center to get some help. One of the park employees at the visitors center followed me back to the tree where the crow was tied up and called park services to come and help.

Since I new that the crow would get some help I went on my way around the lake in search of the owls nest. I did not get a lot of details on the nest or its location so I just followed the path and checked out all of the larger nests that I found but soon I came to the end of the path and did not see any owls.

Since there was several smaller paths that branched off of the paved path I thought that perhaps the nest was near one of these paths so on my way back I decided to try a different path. This just led me back to the paved path so I decided to head back the way I came. Perhaps they might be able to give me some information about the location back at the visitors center.

It was then when I heard a single crow begin to go into mobbing mode. Since I knew that there were owls in the area and crows are incessant about mobbing owls I decided to check it out. I walked back up the paved path a little ways and was able to locate an adult owl being mobbed by a single crow back in the woods.

Since there were quite a few tree branches between me and the owl I could not really get any good pics so I decided to look around in the area to see if I could find the nest. While I was looking the crow finally gave up and flew away. A few minutes later the owl took off from its perch deep in the woods and landed on a dead tree that was closer to the path. I was excited because now the owl was more in the open and it might be possible for me to get some pics. So I moved back down the path and took focus on the owl.
That was when I discovered that this was the nest. One of the chicks came up out of a crack in the dead tree to greet mom. She checked on the chick and made sure that everything was OK and then flew off back into the woods. A few minutes later a second chick appeared and I was able to photograph them both. After clicking off a few gigabytes worth of pictures of the chicks I headed off down the path to investigate some recent pileated woodpecker holes in a different tree. I stopped by again on my way back and found that mom had returned and was sitting on the nest keeping the owlets warm.

On my way back out of the park I stopped by to check on the tangled crow. It was gone. I stopped for a second and smiled. Because I had taken the time to do the right thing a crow was now free and because of a lone crow I was able to find the owl nest that I was looking for. Perhaps it was the same crow and perhaps not, either way I do believe that it was karma.