“Night is the blotting paper for many sorrows.”

Author Unknown

We have a mystifying night prowler

In our heavily populated neighborhood

One of my neighbors is afraid to walk her dog

She thinks our prowler is evil and up to no good

And many of my extremely concerned neighbors

Now spot his eerie eyes in their windows at night

So now many of my extremely concerned neighbors

Have become a tad nervous – some filled with fright

Recently as I walked one of my dogs about midnight

I heard some very mysterious sounds in the evergreens

As my dog and I now nervously walked faster and faster

This night prowler seemed to be following along the trees

At first none of us in the neighborhood really knew for sure

Who or what this night prowler wanted or what he was after

So I soon began sitting out in the bushes almost every night

Hoping to solve this new mystery – wanting to avoid disaster

I’d been sitting quietly out there for several long nights

When suddenly I heard one of my neighbor’s cats cry out

And this was a terrifying feline caterwaul of fright and pain

I knew instantly that disaster had now struck without a doubt

But my neighbor’s young cat is an extremely fortunate creature

It escaped with its life only losing an ear in the prowler’s attack

And now I sadly know who and what our crafty night prowler is

I’ve warned my neighbors to guard their pets and watch their backs

Unfortunately and very sadly to me in our gluttonous modern world

We’ve now managed to eradicate much of this night prowler’s prey

So this old barn owl along with many other starving animal predators

Have been forced to view pets as a food source to survive another day

An elderly woman living not too far from my home

Recently lost her beloved dog to a starving coyote pair

So please don’t let your small pets wander outside all alone

There are now sadly many starving night prowlers out there

The owl's mysterious haunting calls, piercing eyes, and very stealthy night flight ability can be both fascinating to nature lovers, and now, unfortunately, quite terrifying to our small pets.

With a fossil record 66 million years long, they are one of the oldest groups of living birds on the planet. Many scientists believe that owls descended from small dinosaurs, but no matter who their ancestors were, our modern world has not been very kind to them.

Their eons old natural diet consists mainly of small rodents:  field mice, chipmunks, moles, and squirrels, and every day today in our modern world we trap, poison, and bulldoze more and more of these tiny creatures into oblivion in our never ending, increasingly food chain destructive, penchant for urban sprawl.

And when these owls and other night predators can no longer locate any of their natural prey, they eventually look to our pets as a food source.

The owl's large reflective eyes are huge in proportion to its body, and they have the best night vision of any animal on earth. And their hearing is superb.  Owls can hear a beetle running through the grass a hundred feet away, and a mouse timidly squeaking at a distance of half a mile.

And once prey of any kind is spotted, an owl will swiftly and silently swoop down and securely grasp it in its extremely powerful razor sharp talons. My neighbor’s cat was extremely lucky to have somehow torn itself loose from this night prowler’s deadly grip.

Owls can be found on every continent except Antarctica and in nearly all types of habitat, but their solitary and nocturnal habits, as well as the effectiveness of their camouflage, often make them very difficult to spot.

Mated owls stay together a very long time, and they may use the same nest for more than 20 years. They frequently settle in holes in trees or the abandoned nests of other birds instead of creating nests of their own.  They are also extremely devoted to their offspring, and they will feed them whatever available prey they can possibly find.

Twenty-one of the more than 140 known species of owls live in North America, and although most owls prefer to stay far away from humans, barn owls and screech owls often live near human settlements because rats and mice were once extremely plentiful wherever people lived.

Please watch your small pets – I would bet that many starving night prowlers already have their eyes on them.

Our suburban neighborhood also now has a pair of coyotes who also diligently watch me from the deep dark shadows as I walk my dogs after dark.  Although they would probably never attack my three large dogs, I’m sure they would love to catch my tiny Chihuahua out on her own.

©2006, Mr. Ed