No, I’m not talking about Harry Potter.

I’m wondering about owls.  Can they tell time?  Has anybody ever studied this?

I can’t find anything on Google, but we have an owl that’s been coming around for the past few weeks and, honestly, she has been arriving at almost exactly the same time every evening.

Now, why is that?

Okay, so she lives in the neighborhood.  Why shouldn’t she come around?

No reason at all.  I would expect her to hunt around in the yards of the houses surrounding wherever she has her nest.  I’d even expect that she might come nightly.  What I don’t expect is that she lights in that same tree every night at 7:42 pm.

Is she punching a time clock?  Do her eyes register some specific shift in light that indicates it is time to begin her appointed rounds?  And are they such creatures of habit that she travels the same exact route every night?   Two minutes to fly from the oak down the street to the pine tree next door.  Another 20 seconds to flit to the top of the sweetgum tree.

Maybe.

But even if the route is identical night after night, doesn’t a mouse or a mole ever appear?  You’d think there’d be some variation in the schedule to allow for hunting.

I haven’t seen her for a few nights, but for a while there, we could have set the clock by her.

I’m just wondering why that was.