Found

Found

Molly walked down the side of the dirt road away from her car. She had pulled her car as far off the road as she could, hoping any traffic that came by would not be bothered by it. There was rarely traffic on this road, but occasionally a car would roll down. “It should be fine,” she thought. Molly kept walking, binoculars pointed up towards the sky. A snowy owl was flying overhead. Not directly overhead, a little in front of her even, but overhead enough that she had to strain her neck back a little to see it. It was a clear view of the owl, identifiable by its’ almost all white body and _______________________.

She stared in disbelief. “Amazing! How beautiful,” she thought as she pushed a wisp of brown hair out of the view of her binoculars. She had waited for many years to find this bird. Molly thought back to 20 years earlier.

She had taken a bird watching course for college, not by choice of course. It was to fulfill a 1 credit science course. The class was a weekend class, only lasting three days. Molly had taken the class figuring she would never go out bird watching again. But she had, time and time again. She had found that she loved it, love the search for the rare birds, the excitement even of seeing the same types of birds time and time again and wondering if it was the same bird she had just seen the day before.

A noise below her drew her back to the present. She glanced at the owl through binoculars one last time and then lowered the binocs and looked down. It was a chickadee, bouncing around on the bushes in the ditch along the road. Molly smiled. They were so common and yet she was amazed at the little creatures every time she saw one. She watched it bounce around on the branches of the bushes before it flew away.

Molly’s mind wandered again this time back about 10 years. She had been searching for a view of the snowy owl ever since she had become a bird watcher. Every winter, she drove out down dirt roads in between farm fields searching across the snow covered tundra searching for even just a glimpse of the bird. Every year, she came back disheartened, wondering where the bird could be. Her birding friends found it, saw it year after year even. There were even many sightings listed on the Michigan Saginaw Bay Birding Association website in the same area where she looked, so she wondered how the bird manage to escape her every time.

Molly had called up her mother one day after a disappointing day in the field. “I’ll never find one, Mom. It’s just not meant to be.”

“It’ll happen, my dear, just wait and see. You’ll find it.”

“I don’t know, mom, I’ve searched half my life and still nothing. Where is it?”

“The bird’s there. You just have to keep looking. You’ll find it. I have that feeling.”

Molly had known what her mother was talking about by “that feeling.” Her mother had always gotten certain “feelings” when she knew something was going to happen. She was always right.

Still, Molly had found it hard to believe she was right about the owl. She lifted her binoculars back up towards the sky. No owl. She scanned the horizon of the snow covered farm field across the road. “There’s something moving. There’s something there.” She looked closer. There it was, diving into the field, probably after a mouse or something. Molly watched through the binoculars as the bird swooped down and caught something in its’ talons. The bird flew back across the field, landing closer to where the field met the road, close to where Molly stood. Molly looked through the binoculars and watched as the bird began to consume the small animal that it held. “Gross.” Molly looked away for a moment, lowering her binoculars. When she looked back up, it was gone. She scanned the field again with her binoculars. Nothing. The rare find was gone.

Molly walked back down the road to where she had parked her car earlier. She climbed in and shut the door. Digging her cell phone out of her pocket, she dialed her mother’s number.

“Hello?”

“Hi Mom, it’s me. You’ll never believe what I found today.”

“Oh, I think I know. I always knew you would find it.”

Molly smiled. Her mom had been right after all. She had finally found what she had spent years looking for.







769 words