Owlwatch 3
Story and Illustration by ‘Shoe
Dog most nights slept in the front room with Isobella facing an open doorway onto a verandah and beside the internal doorway that had no door against the Castle’s central room even though Dog was not Isobella’s, Isobella in trust asleep on a divan, Dog slung low on the giant sandstone blocks that made the floor interesting. Between the blocks had not been filled with grouting and sometimes one of Dog’s paws dropped into a chasm in her sleep. Dog re-accommodated herself with a deft twist of her leg.
Dog sidled in like a comma into Isobella’s room in the evening. She had a way as if worried what would happen to her tail if she stopped watching it. She was a break in a sentence, but the opening announcement of a trial by jury, fearful and hopeful. She was a squat dog and showed her hard life by her habits, devoted and pessimistic, intelligent and naive.
The owl native to New Zealand, Ruru, the Morepork, Ninox novaeseelandiae, a Bobuk was out all night long almost entirely silent. Ruru has special feathers.
Etia anō āku mata me te mata-ā-ruru e tīwai ana
Me te mata kāhu e paro noa rā kai te tahora!
My eyes are like morepork eyes turning from side to side,
Like the eyes of a hawk who soars over the plain! 1
Margaret Orbell, Birds of Aotearoa. Auckland: Reed, 2003, p101.
REF:
1 http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/birds-of-prey/page-2
PAST EPISODES, READERS
Episode 1 – November 2010 – is here http://pigsarms.com.au/2010/11/22/the-castle-episode-one-the-florist/
Episode 2 – April 2011 – is here http://pigsarms.com.au/2011/04/02/the-castle-episode-2-wooden-%E2%80%93-it-%E2%80%93-be-%E2%80%93-nice-%E2%80%93-to-%E2%80%93-get-%E2%80%93-on-%E2%80%93-with-%E2%80%93-your-%E2%80%93-neighbours/
Episode 3 – February 2012 – is here http://pigsarms.com.au/2012/02/16/the-castle-episode-3-fruhlingsrauschen/
Episode 4 – October 201 2 is here http://pigsarms.com.au/2012/10/29/the-castle-episode-4-lessons/
I love that line “Dog sidled in like a comma”. I’m fascinated by Whippets. I think they float in like a rhetorical question mark. Lovely work, ‘Shoe. Thank you.
I liked that. I spent a little time chewing through a follow on I edited several times to give it substance for chewing over and came out pleased. Pleased am I too getting through the pain barrier and forgetting about lost chapters (that went with the failed drives). I feel the excitement. Thank you for looking at it and posting it.
Whippets like rhetorical question marks? That is too good. I would like to see where that could go.
They are noiseless in their flight. This is why the bird is a good hunter. I like the drawing of the owl looking a bit worn out indeed.
Thank you Gez. O, yes, I myself think the owl looks done in, eh. All that night life.
A morepork however not a silent bird insofar as reference is it’s distinctive call…
‘Shoe, don’t you mean ‘mopoke’? Morepork is the place written about by Terry Pratchett! (or is there some symbolic irony here that I’m missing?)
Good story and piccie but!
They are a vlovely bird, asty. My nocturnal habits and wandering around Auckland exploring meant I was fortunate to fleetingly see it.
Nope, there is is no symbolic meaning you are missing there.
I searched you out a Terry Pratchett type-I think morepork.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MoreporkMaunga.jpg
LOL! I like ‘morepork’ anyway! But I STILL think the bird is a mopoke!
Must say nocturnal explorations of Auckland sound like fun!
Crikey! It does say ‘morepork’ at the end of the movie… but how well-edjummakated was the poster? Could be the local name for ‘Mopoke’ (which may, I suppose be an American version of a similar species of owl…) And besides, they’re only Kiwis anyway… so what would THEY know?! (Just kidding ‘Shoe… no… put that cricket bat down, ‘Shoe… ‘Shoe! PUT…. THE BAT…. DOWN…!!!)
asty, you hapless chap you are confusing Ruru with Mopoke or Morepork but you frequently forget I was born and raised in tropical North Queensland and I was an emigre to Aotearoa for ten years only. I have proof I am not a kiwi that I flew there and back, not the little bird leastwise because they cannot fly.
They are very cute, the little birds, if you have not seen one. I thought when I saw them there had been a mistake and they had wandered into their own cartoon. They are v cartoonable.
Crrrrrrrick-et bat, maybe you mean the little cricket crossed with one of those remarkable wing folded characters that hang around, now they are remarkable. How I have lived to tell the tale of walking through bat colonies in NQ I cannot imagine. Lucky I guess.
asty, recall the fellow who was the cricketer sportsman who raised his cricket bat and waved it at some cheeky reveller in a stand at a game? In a threatening way. Wow, that blew me away, truly, that was amazing to see that replay. When I was a kid and as you may recall played competitive tennis if we used a tennis racquet as a weapon of actual practice against anybody or raised it as an implied threat, we were sent to Coventry and I recall that every time I see this reference to me purportedly dashing around with a cricket bat.
Perish the thought. Funny I have never played cricket either but my mum did, how cool is that. I only know what end a cricket bat is from the next because I have Sri Lankan friends who are into their cricket and I occasionally wander into a game of theirs. Me bad and I have never been to a cricket game. How I wish for the experience. Be careful what I wish for I tell myself. I wished to go the races because I had never been and it was like watching horses learn to paint it was so slow between overs.
Well, that was fun.
‘Shoe