The screech owl was tinier than Pippin Frisbie-Calder expected, which made him all the more perfect.

Then he winked at her. Technically, it's more of a blink that happens when an owl's eyelids fall out of sync, but Frisbie-Calder didn't care.

To her, it was a wink, and she lifted her camera just in time to catch it through the habitat window in the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine's raptor enclosure.

"This is my first screech owl," said Frisbie-Calder, who is the school's artist-in-residence. "I just love him."

The best part of her discovery is knowing that this winking owl is not only native to Louisiana, but he's being rehabilitated in the very place that is inspiring her artwork.

Art is the reason why Frisbie-Calder readily enters the raptor enclosure's stuffy heat on stifling Aug

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