Believe it or not, Carthusians - like "the fat owl of the Remove" - call their masters "beaks".
Like the more famous northern spotted owl of the Pacific Northwest, the California species is struggling for survival.
Dr. Walters has spent 20 years studying that endangered species, sometimes called the spotted owl of the Southeast, in longleaf pine forests in North Carolina.
Burrowing owl, (Speotyto cunicularia), small owl of the family Strigidae (order Strigiformes) that inhabits prairie lands of the Western Hemisphere from southwestern Canada to Tierra del Fuego.
With their telegraphic descriptions, the three of them would have fitted splendidly into the cast of Greyfriars, to gather on an autumn afternoon in the Dusky Nabob of Bhanipur's study and toast crumpets with the Fat Owl of the Remove.
The hope is to protect the six-month-old owl through the winter, when owls are most vulnerable to the scarcity of food, and free it in the spring close to another owl of the opposite sex.
