Owls I Have Known

One evening, I came outside to look at the night sky and an eastern screech owl was sitting on my fence post. We looked at each other. It was close enough to touch. Perhaps it realized that because it turned and flew off in that incredibly silent way owls have, thanks to the construction of its wing feathers.

That was serendipity. More typical was the other night when I was part of a group of people shivering in the dark, hoping our guide would be able to fool an eastern screech owl into calling for us as the temperature started on its long march below freezing.

As we stood in the snow waiting, I noticed the moon was nearly full and when wind blew aside the clouds I could see the constellations Gemini, Orion and Perseus. There is no Owl constellation and, ultimately, we heard no owls on this prowl.

That's the way it goes. As MH constantly reminds me, the birds aren't waiting for us -- especially when these nocturnal raptors can hide in plain sight in the dark as easily as they can when they roost in the daytime.

But it is not impossible. In fact, on the way to the Owl Prowl a great horned owl flew over the road ahead of us.

Another time, in the middle of an afternoon, walking on a boardwalked trail, a great horned owl flew over my head, landed in a tree long enough for me to identify it and then flew off. And there was the great horned owl duet I heard by chance one predawn morning in January, as the male - in one of my backyard trees - called to its mate some distance away as I was locking the front door to head off to work.

Driving in the Great Swamp one afternoon, I stopped to see what a woman was seeing through her binoculars. It was a barred owl, one of the few owls with dark rather than yellow eyes. It had a rather benign look on its face -- but that is just an illusion, just as it is an illusion to think of some of the smaller, round-headed owls are cute and cuddly.

They are not.

Take this screech owl (below) that MH photographed in Delaware in 2010. We missed it - another couple asked if we had seen it and were kind enough to lead us to it.

Eastern Screech Owl (RE Berg-Andersson)

This 8-inch owl, which looks like a great horned owl that shrunk in the wash, may look like a friendly little guy but like the bigger owls it has asymmetrical ears - those tufts sticking up are feathers, not its ears - the better to hear its next meal scurrying around, even under snow. It has sharp talons for killing and a sharp bill. Like all owls it will eat its meal whole, later regurgitating a hard pellet containing all the bones and other parts it can't digest.

Also like other owls the screech owl is not only good at not being seen at night, it is very good at hiding in plain sight in daylight. As you can see with this owl, it is in a cavity, poking its head out. Other owls hide themselves to roost by standing close to the trunk of a tall evergreen, or even a small, thickly foliaged shrub (if it is one of the smaller owls, such as the saw-whet owl). I was once in the Great Swamp, in an area where someone told me he'd seen a barred owl. I stood and looked but saw nothing...until it flew out. Its coloring and spotting had blended in with the mottled bark of a spruce.

It was likely right in front of me, having a good laugh...if owls could laugh. They do make other sounds -- whinnying (screech), hooting (great horned), barking (barred), hissing (barn owls) and tooting (saw-whet). In the middle of the night, those sounds can range from strange to downright scary, especially if you can't see the source.

Some owls hunt in daylight. The snowy owl, for instance, has the long summer days of the arctic tundra. But when the winter food supply crashes, this owl of the north will some south to find a meal. Several years ago there were many sightings of snowy owls, a phenomenon known as an irruption. This one below was seen at New Jersey's Island Beach State Park.

Snowy owl (RE Berg-Andersson)

People think snowy owls are cute and cuddly, too. They remember Hedwig, the snowy owl of Harry Potter's at Hogwarts. Gift shops run by New Jersey Audubon and the National Audubon Society will sell you a stuffed snowy. But don't let the round head and body and the big, yellow eyes fool you into doing something stupid. These are raptors, just like the redtail hawks and peregrine falcons. In fact, here is some video of a snowy fighting off a falcon.

Other owls hunt at dawn or at dusk. The first time I ever saw a short-eared owl it flew over our car as we were driving on a road through a marsh at dusk on the way to Cape May. (It was the odd silhouette that helped me identify this bird.)

When I think about it, I have seen and/or heard quite a number of different types of owls, both by day and by night. Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.

In the dark

For about five years I would have to get up at 3:45 a.m. to catch a 5:20 a.m. train and be at the office in Jersey City by 7 a.m. I always woke in the dark and most of the time I walked in the dark, too. The short period of a month before and after Memorial Day would allow me to walk at dawn and listen to the singing of warblers, finches and the Big 4 of robin, cardinal, song sparrow and catbird. (The most I have heard at one time those dawn mornings over the years was 23 different types of bird.)

Since changing to more normal hours I've come to appreciate what I had while walking in the dark. I learned the constellations and traveled with a moon shadow. Most house lights were off and except for adults delivering newspapers from their cars (no more the boy or girl on the bicycle), I was usually alone in my travels. Unlike life in New York City, the only thing I feared most during these trips was spooking a skunk. I was never sprayed, thankfully, even when I practically kicked a young one sitting at the edge of a dark road.

Seeing deer was a given, although the 15 that ran out of a yard in a freight train-like line stopped me in my tracks. I've also seen racoon, possum and red fox, including one that sat literally in the intersection of two roads until I walked close to it.

If you go out at night when the sky is clear and the moon is full during migration season you can see the birds cross the moon and - listen carefully - hear the flight calls. I'm not experienced enough to be able to tell you what I am hearing, but just hearing them is a thrill.

But what I miss most, however, is the calling owls.

I heard what you would expect - the hoo-hoo-hoo of the great horned owl, the whinny of the screech owl.

But I have heard the screech owl actually screech (it isn't pretty) and once I heard the "who cooks for you, who cooks for you all" of the barred owl.

And then there was the time I heard the most unearthly screaming, sounds that were not of this world. I have since learned they came from a barn owl that must have been passing through and decided to sit in a tree over our town's brook.

Nowadays I come home in daylight and once in the house I stay put. When it gets dark I am usually getting ready for bed. But there are times I get up in the night and stand by an open window, hoping to hear one of the owls.

I was lucky once - a brood of noisy great horned owls yowling in my backyard. I threw on a robe and ran out and listened. Momma Owl saw me, of course, and I could hear the yowling move off when I tried to see them. I never did.

Maybe it's the degree of difficulty that makes night owls so special. MH and I once saw a snowy owl on a pier in Piermont, NY, where it had been for some weeks drawing a crowd. It looked bored when we saw it. Snowys hunt by day so seeing this was easy. So was the short-earred owl we saw at a grasslands in upstate New York.

More difficult, and thus more satisfying, was seeing long-earred owl. I wrote last time about the ones at Great Swamp but the first one I saw was in Central Park, and I had come in just to see it. Marie Winn was kind enough to let me know where in the Pinetum it was but it was still hard to see.

But there was a woman on a bench with her small dog and she painstakingly guided my eyes to the dark shape in the pine. I thanked her profusely. She said she and several other park regulars were being very protective of the owl, and I can understand why.

It might be time to start taking night walks again...