on october 31st 2020, i had a close encounter with a white owl while hiking with a friend in a place that used to be my backyard, joaquin miller park in oakland. i had hiked these oakland hills many times by this point but had never seen such a thing. i had heard the owls before in a few instances, during the winter, really late at night. it always felt like i could have been imagining the hoots. they always seemed so distant but on that halloween full moon night i learned how close they really were. from that night on, in the midst of the stay-at-home orders and covid scares, i kept going out to look for these creatures. i learned so much from them, i still am learning from them. during this time i also frequented the joaquin miller native plant nursery, just looking for something to do. i very much appreciate the time i spent there doing all sorts of dirty and green work, which kept me from going insane and inside. i wanted to give back so badly to both the owls and the plant nursery and this owl house was one of the ways i chose to show my gratitude to both. my favorite memories of making this house are working with my dad to cut the wood, finding the stick during an owl hike that would become the perch in front of the house, and painting the native plants. i took the owl house up to the plant nursery, luckily i there was a volunteer there that let me put it inside. i never found out what happened to the house. i had seen other (much smaller) owl and bird houses around the nursery so i assumed it would go up eventually but i never actually saw it go up. i like to think that raccoons and foxes got to use it more than any owl ever did.
