Changing Seasons is this week’s theme, but  Nature is always changing, and the parameters we use to describe a “season” are artificial.  I would imagine that any nature photo would depict change in some way, so I am anticipating a lot of cool nature shots will be hitting the blogs this week.  Yippee!  I do have one to share, taken last February as ice was melting at Wehr Nature Center.  Spring arrived very early in 2012.  Climate change is noticeable here in Wisconsin, as it is in many parts of the globe.  How do you live with change?  Happily accepting and learning from it?  Resisting and avoiding it?  Oscillating on that spectrum somewhere?  It’s always interesting to observe myself when change manifests.  The challenge for me is to be gentle and not judgmental in that observation. 

I have another picture to share, but I can’t post it except in words.  Late last night, I heard the call of a Great Horned Owl outside.  It was the second time in a week that I’d heard it.  Steve had heard it a few days ago and called me in to his office to listen.  I thought at first it was the hoot of my own breathing in my head as I grew quiet to listen.   Then, unmistakably, a pattern emerged.  I looked up the audio track on the internet to identify what kind of an owl it was.  We went outside to look.  It was coming from west of our house, but a street lamp shone in the mid distance making it impossible to see anything in the trees in that direction.  Last night, I heard the sound again from the bedroom.  I looked out the east window at the top of the stairs and saw a silhouette in the tallest bare tree in the neighborhood.  It looked like a huge cat with pointed ears, bunching and stretching way up in the tree.  The cloudy night sky reflected the city lights just enough to show an outline.  The wavy old glass, dirty and screen-covered, made it even more difficult to make out, even with binoculars.   But there he was, large and spirit-like, hooting in the night air.   I knew this mystery could not be captured on film, so I resolved to keep it in my head and share it in story.