The Owl Who Liked Sitting on Caesar (30 page)

During a rare visit to my office, she emerges after exploring behind a row of books.

Drying out after a bath.

Shredding a frond ripped from a houseplant.

Showing off her ‘panels’ of feathers. Note the scapular ‘shawl’ covering her folded wings.

‘Pretentious –
moi
?’ The night Mumble posed with a trophy on the frame of my Dürer print of a young Tawny Owl. As usual, she’s grabbed herself a bit of houseplant; she loved destroying these, and dropping the bits everywhere.

Emerging from one of her tunnelling games under a spread newspaper. Just visible at bottom left is a ping-pong ball, which she completely ignored after finding that she couldn’t ‘kill it’.

Mumble grew her feathers in little more than twelve weeks from leaving the egg; in her fuzzy infant suit, here with the blue nictating membranes flipped over her eyes.

At eleven weeks, giving my signet ring a keen appraisal.

A cautious approach to the dripping kitchen tap. She would sit under it for several minutes, letting the water fall into her open beak.

A glass of wine, a cheroot, music, and a contented owl: what more could a man want on a quiet evening at home?

The Headless Owl: Mumble seen from the front while preening the small of her back. I found her contortions during the grooming process a never-ending source of entertainment.