#FicFest, says trousered owlet.

[Katie-Ellen]

A hoot in my ear said, here's a variant on #PitMad as shared by Kitty. A chance to showcase your polished finished novel, starting March 20:

#FicFest

 

[Alistair Roberts]

A reader or a critic?

 

[Katie-Ellen]

The owlet? He is an agent/pub opportunity scout/spy

 

[Kitty]

Intriguing. I wonder how the theme thing is going to work!

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Yaaassss. Not much use boxing folk in if it's for finished work.

 

[James Marinero]

Thread drift, kind of. Just reading a Mike Connelly novel - learning about the HUGE symbolic significance of owls and how that has changed over time. Also a little about Hieronymous Bosch - he was big on owls.

 

[KG Christopher]

Owls, scary eyes when they look at you

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I like that thread drift @James Marinero.

They are scary, but then they ARE supreme hunters.

 

[KG Christopher]

This reminds me of a story I heard in Geneva. A couple who lived in the Alps, Morzine I think, bought a Chiuahua as a pet for their daughter. As a surprise, they kept it in the back garden until their daughter came home from school. Then, when she came in, they opened the windows to the back garden, and the little dog was sitting on the patio, ahhhh. But then, a buzzard swooped down and picked the little dog up in its tallons, never to be seen again. I was told it was a true story.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I can well believe it, sadly.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

When I worked as a naturalist in MN, we had a group in from one of the local Native American schools. We made a HUGE cultural faux pax--in the classroom, we had a stuffed snowy owl. Beautifully taxidermied in flight...but snowy owls were a symbol of death to these kids. They were TERRIFIED! Funny, that school never came back again...

 

[Robinne Weiss]

I used to work with a pair of great horned owls, one of whom loved to give handlers the "death grip". Their claws can go through falconer's gloves when they put their minds to it...
(The golden eagle I worked with could do the same thing, but she required an extra leather arm guard anyway, so it wasn't so bad, with the two layers.)

 

[Katie-Ellen]

When I worked as a naturalist in MN, we had a group in from one of the local Native American schools. We made a HUGE cultural faux pax--in the classroom, we had a stuffed snowy owl. Beautifully taxidermied in flight...but snowy owls were a symbol of death to these kids. They were TERRIFIED! Funny, that school never came back again...

Really...? How interesting, Robinne! Unfortunate but interesting