When we moved into our current Susitna Valley lodgings, we took possession of the property in mid-January, in the depths of an Alaska subarctic winter. One of the things we like about the property is that our office, where my wife and I both work, is across the driveway from the house, giving us a sense of going to work in the morning, leaving work in the evening that we might not otherwise have had when working from home.
Of course, that means going outside in the depths of that same Alaska subarctic winter, early in the morning, and in January, still plunged into the deep dark of an Alaska winter night. That's fine, of course; it's not like we didn't anticipate Alaska being cold in the winter. But only a few weeks after we moved in, one of the coolest things happened: I had just stepped out the door, and something drew my attention upward, to see the silhouette of a Great Gray Owl gliding silently overhead, framed against the stars. I've seen these birds a time or two since, always flying silently over, always at night, although they are active in the daytime.
We have Great Horned Owls in the area, too, and while we are on the edge of their range, we've heard Saw-Whet Owls calling in the woods a few times.
Owls are neat. They are one of the more ancient lineages of birds of prey, and they are found on every continent except Antarctica. Due to soft edges on the ends of their wing feathers, they fly in silence. They have huge, light-gathering eyes, as is suitable for a nocturnal critter. In fact an owl's eyes, rather than being the round orbs we are used to thinking of, are shaped more like floodlight bulbs, meaning that an owl can't move its eyes in their sockets. To look around, an owl has to move it's entire head, and they can do that and to spare, in almost a 360-degree arc in all directions.
I've always found owls interesting, from the days when I was a kid, back in Allamakee County, Iowa. The common owls there were Screech Owls and, most notably, the Barred Owl (Strix varia), who, aside from their distinctive eight-note hoots, could make the nighttime forests ring with screams, screeches, and gibbering wails.
Which brings me to a long walk back to the house from a day's fishing, in which my cousin and I get a healthy helping of respect for these birds. Back then, we referred to these birds as hoot owls, and when I was quite young, I developed the skill of copying their eight-note call, and could even call them in, convincing them another owl was in their territory.
Read More: Photographs and Memories: A Conspiracy of Ravens
Photographs and Memories: The First White Whispers of Winter
My cousin Bill and I were walking back on a summer night, having spent the day fishing over on Waterloo Creek. Roaming through the woods in the pitch dark wasn't anything new for us. But this night, as we crested the last hill before the valley where my folks' house was, the silence of the forest was broken by a series of eight deep, booming hoots from the hillside above and behind us. “Hoot owl!” I told Bill. “Have I ever shown you how I can call hoot owls?”
“No,” Bill replied, “But right now I’d rather you show me the way back down to your house.”“Aw, c’mon.” I insisted. “Watch this, it’s great.” I tipped back my head and howled my own call back at the owl.
Three answering series of hoots sounded from varying directions. “I got three of ‘em answering! This will be great!” In the silent darkness, I somehow got the impression Bill was adopting a skeptical expression. I howled again at the birds. Three answering series of hoots rang out, closer now. “See, they’re coming right in! Watch this, I’ll call them right in on top of us.”
“I don’t think I like this. Maybe you ought to leave the owls alone.” Bill advised. Despising Bill’s sudden display of the better part of valor, I belted out another owl call. Silence.
“Maybe we better head on back now.” Bill whispered. An ominous presence seemed to be gathering around us.
Owls, remember, can fly in complete silence, due to soft downy edges on their flight feathers. This feature enables them to float softly up on an unsuspecting rabbit or mouse; it also enables them to drift in on what seems to be a strange, rival owl calling threateningly on the edge of their hunting range. They will do this even if the strange rival is really a twelve-year-old boy.
As much as I can reconstruct from the awful moments that followed, three owls drifted in on silent wings, each expecting a rival, and each finding one – the other two owls, in fact, that I’d likewise tolled in with my patented owl call. The first owl to sense the others must have reacted in typical hoot-owl fashion.
One moment, Bill and I were crouched silently under the giant oaks, listening carefully to a night where a few insects seemed to be the only other living things about. The next, a horrifying sound split the night wide; a cross between the wailing of a lost soul and the enraged screech of a wildcat attacking to defend her young, cast forth at the decibel level of a train whistle. The other two owls responded in kind.
The scream of an enraged hoot owl facing an adversary would cause an axe murderer to cringe in terror. We were two twelve-year-old boys with three of them sending horrifying challenges ringing back and forth in the trees above our heads. Only one course of action lay open to us.
“Run!” Bill shouted.
“Follow me!” I shouted back, already shifting into high gear. “I know every tree in these woods…”
Wham! A rock-hard object hit me in the face, an explosion of light resolved slowly into a constellation of stars, wheeling slowly in front of my face. “Funny, I thought the trees were too thick to see the stars here, and why are they spinning?” Then I realized I was laying on my back. I’d run headlong into a white oak tree.
The shrieks of three maddened banshee owls rang through the night; faintly, I could hear the crashing of Bill’s fleeing tennis shoes. Then, WHACK! Bill charged into a shagbark hickory with enough force to drive bits of bark into his forehead. I managed to get to my feet, terror of the horrible wailing driving me on. I’d gone perhaps ten feet when I clipped another tree trunk in the pitch dark and went spinning to the ground again. A few feet away, I heard Bill using language that would have caused his mother to run for a stout switch, as he proceeded to slam into tree trunk after tree trunk like a small, frightened ball in a giant, darkened pinball machine.
Somehow, slamming from tree to tree in the pitch dark, we managed to make it back down the creek bottom to my parents’ house. In the dim light shining from the porch, we splashed across the creek to collapse gasping in the front yard. The owls still screeched faintly in the background.
“Well,” I informed Bill, in between gasps, “I told you I knew where every tree was.” I’m amazed to this day that Bill had the strength to attack me after our ordeal, but attack he did, and I fought him off at the cost of a black eye and two badly bruised fists.
Owls are fascinating birds. Our lives are richer (and our properties more rodent-free) for their presence. But since that long-ago night, I've given up on trying to call them in.
