[Photo from iBird Explorer app]
Tonight, the dinner conch blew early and I headed down the hill at dusk. As I neared a tree right on the path, a strange sight beheld me: a tiny grey bird fluttered out of the tree to the ground. We stopped about 10', eyeing each other.
It was a 5" tall Screech Owl, loaded down with a very fat rodent, nearly the same size as the owl. No wonder it couldn't fly! The tiny bird looked up at me for about 15 seconds, obviously trying to decide whether or not to abandon the hard-won meal. And then it flew off to a tree and watched me walk down the hill. I have never seen such a tiny owl at such close range for such a long time.
After dinner, I returned to the loom for an hour, noticing that the rodent was no longer lying in the path. (I didn't think it would be...) When I stopped weaving and took off my hearing protection, I could hear hundreds of frogs and the insistent hooting of a screech owl very nearby. We hear them all the time, but never so insistent. If I had to guess, I'd say it was celebrating or, maybe, sending an invitation to share dinner.
By the way, I thought it might be interesting to share the amount of thread I use for weft. Here are three of four heavy boxes of thread. It's about enough for 3 weeks of weaving.
[Mostly black weft thread]
And this is the setup I use to ply the thread as I wind it onto bobbins. Here, 5 threads are passed through the cone of a thin thread which wraps around them as it unspools. This binder thread helps make sure that they don't come unplied as they leave the bobbin at high speed. This little trick prevents little loops from forming in the cloth. It was taught to me by my friend, Tien, whose blog you can read HERE.
[Plying setup and bobbin winder]
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