(No, this isn't what I saw! This is an internet photo of an Owl....)
Dog-walking past the perimeter fence of my old allotment the other day, I was amazed and delighted to spot, perched atop a pole on the neighbouring site, this (squint at the shape in front of the trees):
A decidedly huge owl.
I fumbled excitedly for my phone, failing miserably for a minute or two to find the camera setting without my specs.
It wasn't easy, standing on tiptoe to reach over the fence, to snap this magnificent bird.
Then I watched it for a while, awe-struck and thrilled to my core..... until.....
...I realised that it hadn't moved a millionth of an inch since I first spotted it.
Fake Owl, guardian of the neighbouring pigeon crees, I salute you.
Go on, you may jeer. Everyone else did.
Artificial owls are common on yacht masts in the Beaulieu river. Some are obviously fake, others merit a second or third glance (stare)
ReplyDeleteIt had me fooled!
ReplyDeleteDon't worry, we used to regularly pass a fake one with Malcolm's Dad, who insisted it was real!
ReplyDeleteI shall not jeer, it is a remarkably good reproduction of an owl and I would have been taken in too.
ReplyDeletethe detail of the feathers on the photo look to detailed to be fake would suggest a swecond visit could be a great grey owl from Sweden. twitchers will be agog
ReplyDeleteAnon, that first photo was found on the internet, and has absolutely nothing to do with the Fake Owl on a pole that so entranced me!
ReplyDeleteBut I would have loved it to be real..... sigh.....
Fooled me too!
ReplyDeleteVintage Slow Lane Life!! xxx
ReplyDeleteI'd have thought the same - although with my eyesight, I'd probably just have thought it was a large bird!
ReplyDeleteLife is full of disappointments...
ReplyDeleteIncluding the fact that I'm still Anon, according to Google... (Isabelle)
Oh gee.
ReplyDeleteWere you embarrassed even though nobody saw you?
Sure is a pretty bird, even if it is fake....
Hello Rachel
ReplyDeleteThis is so funny. It would ha ve fooled me too.
Anna
I'm off for an eye test this afternoon (they're open bank holidays...) so I wouldn't dare jeer. There's an owl visits our garden regularly at dusk, no doubt after the mice!
ReplyDeleteA nearby museum used to have three owls perched on its tower for a while. I was still fooled despite the improbability of their numbers and immobility. Am in no position to jeer. Oh and a fake heron has had me enthralled too.
ReplyDeleteLOL you made me giggle!!
ReplyDeleteI've done much the same thing many times - generally staring at a log in a field convinced it's a rabbit. And I wear glasses. I blame a vivid imagination.
ReplyDeleteIt looked like an owl to me . No wonder SpecSavers are doing such a roaring trade !
ReplyDeleteAnonymously SmitoniusAndSonata ( Isabelle and I are obviously not our sort of people" according to Blogger ! )
Not so much jeering as laughing....
ReplyDeleteBut, as I'm the woman who once mistook a car alarm for a bird song what can I say?!
Lesley xx
We're not jeering! We're applauding your ability to see the best of everything. Sure looks like an real owl to me and I see thousands of them a day. Thousands.
ReplyDeleteHappened to me with a deer statue on an estate we were visiting in Asheville, NC. But that won't stop me from laughing. AHAHHAHAHAAAHHHHHHH!!
ReplyDelete8-)