There is a kind of owl whisperer at Lake Claremont. I see her fairly often, and we have become kind of colleagues. She has rescued barn owls from the water, and from the attack of crows. She has no qualms about picking them up, or throwing something over them if only it will help. She’s been scratched and harassed in the process—by crows, magpies and owls. She looks for them, and finds them, amongst the trees beyond the edges of the lake; she tells me where, and sometimes I can see them too—like the tawny frogmouths to the east, or the barn owls to the north west in recent years. She tells me about other ones today. I look and look and cannot find them; not like she finds them, and they find her. And yes, she does (with no negative judgment intended) slightly resemble one.