Editor’s note:  The following is an old article written by Helen Andrews for the Millbrook Roundtable in October 2001.  We hope you will enjoy it and get a few tips from one of the many articles Helen wrote over the years.

Snug in the bottom of his favorite old woodpecker hole in a tree by the road, sat the little owl.  It was early in the morning and still quite cold outside.  He had hunted and fed on a mouse early in the evening and now with daylight he waited for the first rays of the warm sun to shaft down from the hole far above.  Suddenly he felt a jarring, the tree seemed to shake, then all was still.  In a little while he would come up and sit at the hole and enjoy the warm sun.   With his eyes nearly shut, he would sit so still he seemed a part of the tree.  Many people passed by and never saw him, although he saw them through the slits of his eyelids.  WOW!  Another bump bigger than the one before.  What was happening?

He raised up and peered upward.  Then a very strange, very loud noise began deep down near the roots.  Should he sit tight or should he get out?  He waited a bit more ever alert to the strange noise.  It sounded like a whole swarm of bees all angry and ready to do battle.  The noise grew louder and the tree began to shake - worse than any storm he had ever sat through. The tree began to lean and topple.  Up he flew like a bundle of gray feathers, out the hole that was already starting to crash to the ground.  Like a gray streak, he dashed off into the nearby trees.  As the tree crashed to the ground, a voice said "What was that?"  Another voice said "I guess we ousted a little screech owl."

A few weeks later, the lady came by - where was her owl tree and where was the little gray screech owl?!  Only an empty space and a newly cut stump.  In another hole a half mile away sat the little owl.  That had been his favorite tree.  He liked the lady who stopped to see him often.  He would miss her.  He had several roosting holes and now he would have to settle for second best.  The sun would shine on this hole and he would settle down in the new spot and enjoy it.