Owl

I had an event to attend later in the evening, and so decided not to go home after work.  Futzed around in the office, rearranging flowers in the lobby and putting on make-up.  It was dark when I left.  As soon as I hit the access road, entering the line of trees, I said out loud to myself, "I wonder if I'll see an owl?" almost simultaneously with the thought, "Am I wearing the sweater? No I am not."  No sooner had these passed than a large bird swooped to my right side, and into a low-hanging, bare branch of a horse chestnut tree.  I stopped and looked.  Walked around the tree to see better.  It turned it's face to look back at me: a barred owl.  I said something to it out loud, people walking across, behind me, but not paying any attention.  I looked at it for a while, and then it leapt off of the branch and landed on a patch of dirt, near a basement entrance to a building.  I walked a little closer, wary of scaring it, wary of it flying back out and smacking me in the head.  It stood on a small mound of dirt, inches away from the wall, fixedly watching the wall.  Occasionally, turned to look at me, to see what I was up to, then back at the wall.  Eventually, a few minutes perhaps, it flew back into the tree, and I walked over to see what it had been looking at.  It watched me.  Some dirt had been pulled away from the wall, leaving a hollowed out area, maybe there was some sorta' burrow there, but I couldn't really tell in the dark.  I turned to leave, it watched me.  I wished it "good evening" and began to walk away, turning back once or twice, and saw it remained in the tree.  A squeak in the bushes to the left made me pause, but it didn't repeat, and the owl wasn't interested in whatever that was.  I continued on into the realm of people and left my bird in the silence of the trees.