Winged Night Stalker

Look, sometimes a particular thing happens in L.A. and you know it must mean something. But what? Like the time this big brown creature crashed through the front window of our house, stomped around like a berserk gargoyle and then flew out.

Flew out? That’s right. This creature had wings. Huge wings, wide as a man’s outstretched arms. And smelled of skunk it did. A monster so frightening and mean it could have starred in one of Disney’s more recent kiddie movies.

In any case, having knocked over the lamps and the potted palm, the creature dived through the gaping hole left in the picture window, stretched its wings and was gone. Leaving skunk smell in its wake.

Right now you are waiting for the payoff to this story, right? The signal that all of the above did not really happen. But it did. And somewhere, sometime, it will happen again. Dear reader, L.A. contains creatures of which you have never dreamed.

Actually, I had not dreamed of them either. On the day of the attack on our domicile, I was at work. Around 2 p.m. the baby-sitter called and her voice seemed icily calm.

You should come home, she said.

Why’s that, I asked.

There’s an owl in the living room.

Tut, tut, I replied. You are a grown woman. Remove the owl and be done with it.

The owl is very large, she said.

In the background I began to hear crashing noises. It sounded like a bar brawl in progress.

Where’s Casey? I asked. Casey is my 5-year-old son. I had started to picture one of Disney’s Gargoyle movies happening in the living room.

Hiding under the bed in his room, she said. And barricaded.

I will come home, I said.

By the time I arrived, of course, the owl had departed. Casey and the baby-sitter sat on the front steps with the dazed look of people who’ve come through a car wreck. Inside, shards of plate glass covered the living room floor.

I picked up a lamp and put it back on its table. A big cut ran up the side of the shade.

I had always thought of owls as creatures you could nestle in two hands. Spotted owls, that sort of thing. Wise owls. Temperate beasts that did not bust up living rooms. This thing, I thought, must have been some sort of mutant, a steroidal owl, an experiment gone awry at one of the biology labs.

But no. Los Angeles has its surprises and one of them can be found in its owl population. In all of our mighty nation, one owl stands at the top of the owl heap. That’s the Great Horned Owl. And one city stands at the top of the Great Horned’s list of favorite burgs. That’s Los Angeles.

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Here’s some interesting facts about the Great Horned Owl: It has a wingspan of about 5 1/2 feet. It’s so ferocious that it has been known to rip the faces and arms of scientists who tried to inspect its nests. It will eat almost anything that moves, from bugs to fruit rats to poodles. It is among the very few predators that will happily consume a skunk, thus producing its distinctive skunk breath.

In a case related by nature writer John N. Cole several years ago, a Great Horned Owl swooped down on a medium-sized dog being taken for a walk by its owner. The dog’s name was Bandit. Without a warning sound, Bandit suddenly was lifted into the air and carried away for an owl dinner.

This particular owl, which had a history of nabbing pets, was later shot by the local authorities. It weighed 3 1/2 pounds. The dog it carried away had weighed 20 pounds.

Despite its name, the Great Horned Owl does not have horns but ear tufts to enhance its hearing. It is an ancient bird, having been around for about 35 million years. And, according to Lloyd Kiff, an ornithologist who spent much of his career in Los Angeles, the Great Horned Owl is as stupid as it is old.

“About as stupid as a house cat, and that’s stupid,” says Kiff. “They are often described as being ‘hard-wired’ which means their behavior comes from deep instinct and not a cognitive process. That may also explain their ferocity, which seems to be automatic.”

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And they seem to love Los Angeles more than any other large city. Can this be linked to their omnivorousness, their ferocity, or their stupidity? Quien sabe. But virtually every neighborhood in L.A. with a few trees also has a resident pair of Great Horns.

In effect, they share the predatory skies with the red-tailed hawk. The hawk rules the sky by day, the Great Horned by night. That’s why the hawk is so familiar to us and the owl so invisible. We almost never see the owl and therefore assume it doesn’t exist.

It’s out there, of course, waiting for the dark. The dark that will allow it to go about its business, snatching all manner of vermin and a few choice pets. Pets whose loss we will blame on the coyotes. If the perfect killer is the one who never gets caught, the Great Horned comes close.

Only when he takes a wrong turn and goes crashing through a plate glass window does anyone ever notice. Then, as they say, it’s a different story. Just pray you are not next on the list.

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A special note of thanks to all the readers, friends, relatives and distant acquaintances who wrote to point out my reference last week to the great physicist Alfred Einstein. Albert, we hardly knew ye but we do apologize. As one correspondent sweetly suggested, perhaps my mind was on Alfred E. Neuman. Or Alfred Eisenstadt. Or. . . .