Barn owl broken hearted

 I returned it with a tap, tap of my own. I did not want her to worry, that would make her call me into the shelter of the box away from the storm, which was in full force by now.   
 Suddenly a flash of white appeared very close to me- I instinctively closed my eyes, the lightning seemed to be really close now. Opening my eyes I realized it was not lightning at all, the flash was an owl; his wings flashed white as he had flown by to sit on the tree opposite my perch.

The normally sleek Ghost Owl seemed rather ruffled and out of breath. ”Hey, brother what’s the matter?” I called out. I was rather vain when it came to my looks- I was a pure white pigeon and had white feathers even on the back of my feet. This gave me a rather stylish look. Compared to the other pigeons that lived in our side of the city I always got a lot of attention.

The Owl has always had a reputation of being wise and noble and this particular variety – the Barn Owl looked really impressive and this made me feel a little ordinary.
The owl looked at me and hastily flew to my perch and settled there, poor chap he looked like he had not eaten in some time, which may be why he was out in the storm to catch some food. Owls eat rats and small rodents and this poor fellow looked like he had not seen much of it in the recent past.
He had the typical white heart shaped face and soft beige and brown feathers. His eyes which were like marbles,  looked like they had seen too much, fear still lurked in them. On getting his breath back he narrated his story: Mrs. and Mr. Barn Owl were residents in the sunshade of a big office block.
It was a touching love story about how they had met – three years and three sets of chicks later they were still happily married- Barn Owls paired for life.
One day some humans had climbed down from the roof of the office block and caught him from the nest- since owls are nocturnal birds they sleep in the day time.
He had struggled but it had been useless, they put him into a gunny sack and had taken him in one of those noisy machines to a place far away.

The only comfort was that Mrs. Owl was not in the bag with him, this made him hope that she had not been caught. In all the confusion he had tried to push her out of their nest- he hoped that she was safe. The people had kept him in a box for many days and fed him raw meat but he had refused to eat- partly out of fear and also anger.
How could people do this to them- they had never done any harm to humans and in fact helped them by catching mice, Mrs. and  Mr. Owl would catch sometimes three to four mice in a night. 

One day Owl had escaped, he had become a lot thinner because he had not eaten and he flew up and out of the box. He had heard such terrible things about what these humans did with his kind of owls. They were sold for large sums to people, who used various parts of their body for medicinal purposes.
They were sold live, only then would the humans get a good price for them. There were many more boxes in the shed and he was sure they also contained Barn Owls. Too frightened to wait and find out he had flown away and reached there.
 From his perch Owl caught a glimpse of movement, like a flash of lightning he flew down and came back with a rat in his beak. I tried to look away as he hungrily ate the now dead rat. I could nor help being impressed about how neatly he ate it all with out soiling his white feathers.

As most birds know pigeons are not the cleanest of birds, even though they only eat grains. Owl looked a lot better after he had finished his meal, the storm had also moved away and the rain stopped.
Owl wanted to know which part of the city we were in, he needed to find his way back to his nest and find Mrs. Owl. I told him to rest and wait till morning.
That night a Pigeon and an Owl became friends. At daybreak we wished each other farewell and Owl spread his magnificent wings and set out in search of his family, a free bird again.