OUTDOORS

Memory, Mystery and a Giant Owl

Owl legends, ladybird swarms, and lost landscapes

Photo by Keith Lazarus on Unsplash

The owl didn’t blink.

Stone eyes stared sightlessly into the trees.

Then the rock began to crawl…

We cycled out to Jubilee Woods the day after Storm Amy finally blew itself out.

After three days of gale-force winds and torrential rain, the day was blissfully calm. And warm.

For October, it was unseasonably warm. The sun burned low in the sky, blinding but welcome.

As we approached the woods, a ladybird passed us, flying down the track and into the trees ahead. A harbinger of what we were about to witness.

We had barely set foot in the woods before they opened out into a clearing dominated by a giant stone owl.

The sculpture must have been 12 feet high and was oriented facing away from the track. The owl’s sightless stone eyes gazed off into the trees, and from the track all you could see was the owl’s back.

Leaving the track, I angled across the clearing in a wide arc so I could view the owl face-on. As I approached, I saw a couple of ladybirds on the stone’s surface. Then a handful. Then, as I drew closer still, my gaze took in more and…