Ciao from extra-cute Gustavo!

 

 

The discovery of the owl in the barn

At first it was a sensation.
The sensation of a presence in the barn.
I felt I was observed by someone and I was “spied”.
That, definitely, I wasn’t alone in the barn.
I concluded that it was just me and my imagination, pretty fertile and that I was wrong.
Terribly wrong.I hadn’t slept well that night. Maybe it was that.
The day after I felt the same sensation plus some noise.
The third day I noticed an animal with two wings leaving the barn through one of the windows but like if he would have wanted to be noticed by me but quick enough for not being recognized.
Sly animal.
I was right!
There was a “someone” in the barn.
The following step?
To discovering what kind of animal could be.
When I understood paying attention at the straw that it was the right corner of the barn to be occupied by the new owners 🙂 , and that it was an owl the famous animal I tried to give a name at, I thanked Lord for the wonderful occasion I was having.

I had always dreamt to interact with a nocturnal animal and to discover something more about their habits would have been amazingly impressive.

Experiencing all the process of the creation of a new little owl’s life is not so common.

Gustavo’s mom had created a nest close to me, so I could have stopped by there once the little owls would have born.
A real dream.
The emotion was starting….

 

Anna

The Beginning of All

 

 

Ciao! I am Gustavo’s mom.

 

Gustavo

insisted a lot last night while we were in the forest, observing the wonderful obscurity surrounding us:

“Mom but if you won’t explain why I became the owl in the barn, a chapter of this story will be missed“.

And so here I am.

I guess that you will be all curious to discover why I choose with my owl-husband a barn for creating and growing up my new baby-owl.

We knew the risks connected with it: we knew the risk of staying too close with animals, the human beings, with which we don’t interact with a lot and vice-versa. They don’t know us because when we go outside they sleep and when they’re awoken, we sleep. Our secrets are not their secrets. Our knowledge is not their knowledge.

 

Our biggest fear as a couple, to be discovered, to be refused as creatures of the night, to be killed, to seeing killed our eggs or our baby-owls once born.

My husband and I lived and nested from more than 10 years at that part in a hollow of a big tree. We loved it. The tree was a sort of warm giant, it gave us security and certainty.

It was what you humans would call “The perfect house for us”.

Our favorite place where to brooding eggs, and growing up our babies, little owls.

We hadn’t never had problems in the past with our little owls, because perfectly hided and we have always grown up them with great success.

One day, during the late winter, during a bad storm a lightning destroyed our warm house. We loved it so badly and we are still missing it.

Sure there was another problem and we were alarmed: our season of reproduction, brooding eggs, becoming father and mother again, too close for searching for with success another hollow somewhere else that could satisfy us. We started to feel the urgency of finding a pretty warm and comfy nest for brooding our eggs. But where?

We have been helped by a lot of animals during our search for it.

One night we received the visit of the wise owl Rudolph.

He said us that Caramello, the cat of Anna was available to leave us, for an undefined time the barn where he was sleeping in.

“Poor chap, he had previously lost an eye…I think that Anna hasn’t seen him in a long while”.

Caramello’s story is particular. His dream would have been the one of being the perfect house-cat, observing Anna while she was typing a piece, or just staying close to her while she was reading a book sipping some tea. He didn’t like after all hunting, although he did it for a pure sport activity, sometimes.
The little dog of Anna, Sidi notoriously jealous of other domestic pets didn’t permit him the realization of this dream and so Caramello moved on, going away.

Caramello loved to spend most of the nights in the barn, in particular during the winter-time. A brief “hello” and later the return in the wild and in the forest.

For Anna and the same Caramello it was a straining moment each time but both of them knew that Sidi, Anna’s dog wouldn’t never have consented at Caramello to living a good existence in the house or close to it. Better to stay free. Sometimes creatures are in wrong places at the wrong moments.

I asked about the barn.

“A good place” added our common owl friend Rudolph.
“I think that you can think of brooding your eggs there. Anna loves wild animals. In case you are discovered, and maybe it won’t happen, it can be a good opportunity for both of you”.

We didn’t understand what Rudolph meant with it at first, but in the while we visited the barn and we found it pretty good for our purpose.

We talked with Caramello   and with the promise of not disturbing and invading him in the area where he loved to hunting little mouse, we obtained the right of staying in the barn for an undefined time but more or less, we thought for no more than two months.

I started to brooding three eggs at the beginning of march.

 

A new adventure that would have brought new existences for the nocturnal world was starting…

Gustavo’s Mom

Gustavo

Ciao!

My name is Gustavo. The girl with which I spent more time with, a real picture addicts, and telling to you the truth sometimes I was stressed by the flash light! although it was incredibly funny, thought I had to have an “important” name and Gustavo to her was cute, aristocratic and of course, important for an owl.

I was born something like 30 days ago in a barn in a little rural italian countryside for what Anna said me. I didn’t imagine my first 30 days of life would have been so exciting. I thought I would have spent most of the time eating, sleeping and surrounded by my mom’s love.

 

It was of course like that, but there was something more as well.

 

In my case my owlyage has been incredibly exciting, plenty of human visits and I have been surrounded by a quantity of humans I am sure I won’t never see anymore for the rest of my, I hope, long life..

 

Oh, I really enjoyed staying in the barn. I have been surrounded, apart by my mom’s love also by all the possible attention from a lot of human beings.

 

Thinking better they’re not so bad but you know? Mom always says me that we don’t see them so we don’t know them although we feel them. I don’t still realize what mom wants to tell me. How can we feel someone if we don’t never see him/her?

 

Do you know humans? They’re so curious.

They have strange extremities that they use for walking. In other cases their so-called hands can be good for being branches. Or, better, my human owner said me that. My first branch has been an arm, do you know it?

It was great, although Anna repeated me always: “Gustavo, remember always that the branches  you will sat on in the forest will have a different stability and you will see always a wonderful dreaming landscape, and don’t forget to look at the Moon. She was right”.

They love to taking pictures, with strange objects. My favorite object was the smart phone but when I grew up I preferred the digital camera.

The human’s eyes are not as big as our eyes. They’re more little and people don’t tend to look here and there with circumspection as we do. At least, I think that they don’t eat mices.  They don’t need all our neck’s exercises for looking in the various directions but it seems that they have cervical problem something we don’t know what it is at all mom said me. Maybe they should start to eat mices?

All the humans I have met never interested to stealing my mices. I don’t think they like them at all. Which, of course it was more than good for me.

 

I am a sexy beast, in the sense that as always said me Anna I am extra-cute and wonderfully photogenic.

 

What I can hope is that you will like these words from me and from Anna.

 

We want to tell you what it means to growing up in a barn surrounded by human love and what it means to be surrounded by owl’s love.

Surrounded in a word by: love.

 

Although in fact we can appear like distant animals, we are more close to you than what you can think.

 

I miss my old life and I miss Anna and the rest of all the human friends I knew, but mom said me one night that it was time.

Time for leaving the barn, and time for flying Into the Wild, time for living my life without forgetting, always remembering and one day when I will become a real adult owl, be back for saying to everyone: ciao, I haven’t never forgotten you.

Gustavo, the little Owl