I hid in the Rockefeller Center Tree all the way from Oneonta

But now I'm fine.

Did you know that owls rarely make good falconry birds? Here are the top ten reasons they don’t make great pets either, which is really a moot point for law abiding Americans, since it’s against the law to have a pet owl.

Listen to me going on! What I really wanted to tell you was about the famous little owl’s trip from Oneonta to Manhattan.

My Adventure

The farmer was rumbling his trucks. The air smelled of diesel. It was morning but cloudy, giving us more nighttime than we’d expected. The dogs were exhilarated, rushing here and there and barking big gusty barks. I heard every footfall—every time a paw crunched through the film of frost on loamy dirt. I heard every jingle and jangle of dog collar. I even heard the farmer open and close his thermos—it let out a little hiss each time. My brother and I were used to all this commotion. It was just an average Christmas tree farm morning. We were home.

We’d grown up in the tallest tree. I still liked to sleep in its branches by day, even if I spent most nights swooping over other farms, smooth pastures, far fields. Our mother had disappeared some time ago, maybe to go have a new family.

There’s nothing like soaring through twilight cold, purple sky over your wing, the little twinkle of radio stations and Wall-Marts in the distance, feasts of mice and voles and rabbits moving clumsily and audibly below. This is the life!

But now it was morning: time to sleep. The dogs’ barking was what alerted me to the late hour. Maybe brother will be at our tree, I thought, but he wasn’t. I found my favorite branch W and settled myself in firmly, closed my eyes.

The next thing I knew I was falling.

I clung to my branch and closed my eyes. Then the branches moved in to trap me. Tighter and tighter. I could see one little patch of light. The farmers were talking. The dogs tried to tell them I was in the tree, but the farmers just kicked the dogs away.

Then I was in the dark and it was loud. Because I’m an owl, I did not make up an interesting story to explain what was happening. I just turned my tongue over inside my beak, blinked my eyes, and sighed. I did feel sad and afraid. And then thirsty and hungry. It was very loud, but not the kind of sound attached to food. I thought about things to eat: the soft, long-eared ones, the small fatter ones with beady black eyes that glimmer in the night by the light of the moon, letting you know just where to swoop to snatch their warm, wiggly bodies up. But I would have eaten an ant by the time the tree stopped moving and a big blast of daylight blinded me.

The men who found me were very gentle. They were like my Christmas tree farmers, only verboser and thinner. So many of them put their faces right up to mine. Their eyes were the size of deer eyes.

They petted my head and flicked the ends of their fingers against my beak.

One gave me bottled tea to drink out of a cap. The tea was sweet as sap and poisonous smelling. I didn’t take much.

Soon I was in a new place, with women. Nothing but eyes showing. They sounded like a flock of pigeons cooing and purring, their earrings ticking and ringing like windchimes, their ballpoint pens and keyboards clicking and clacking. They moved my wings around and picked me up frequently. I felt like a baby again. I was offered food and drink constantly.

One lady put me in her purse, but then changed her mind and returned me to the short, strange tree.

After a few days trapped in that hard, short tree, I was let go at dusk. Nothing was familiar. The trees were airier and smelled wrong. There were no pastures, no dogs. I flew higher than ever, to get my bearings, to look for the curve and bump and slant I had memorized since before I could fly. I wasn’t hungry. I just want to find my tree and my brother again. I even missed the dogs.

On the third night…

I saw a Christmas tree farm. It wasn’t home, but it was so familiar: the dark, uniform spikes of treetops, three dogs roaming and making a fuss over nothing, a truck rumbling, a barn full of cut trees, woodsmoke rising from a chimney. I floated down, down, and landed on a middle branch of the tallest tree. I somehow knew, right then, that there is no going home. I’d already lost Mother, and now I’d lost Brother and the farm and the memorized geography.

Contrary to popular belief, owls do get cold. But it was a warm night. There must not be many owls or hawks around, I thought, because the rabbits were positively nonchalant. I caught one, ate it, and then caught two more, stowing them in a W of branches for later. No need to hunt anymore tonight, but I wasn’t tired. Someone landed in a branch above mine. I looked up and saw another owl. He stared at me before swooping away. I could see him flying in circles above my tree, his body black against a bright indigo night sky bright with stars and a big moon. Very impressive, I thought dryly, knowing all I had to do was stay awake and he’d come back to find out more about me.

I am a Christmas tree farm owl, I would tell him. I like rabbits and I get along fine with crows. I have a brother and a mother, but I won’t see them again. I have been to New York City and met many New Yorkers. Their buildings are like branchless trees made of ice. Every sound is echoed back or swallowed up. I don’t like Snapple. Dogs are silly. Would you care for some rabbit? I have some to spare.

Coming Next

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