The owl as a gateway to a lifelong fascination
- John Lorson: The Rail Trail Naturalist
- February 26, 2021
- 822
The raptor’s tendency to focus with laser-like intensity as it dives toward a distant target leads each year to thousands of collisions with moving vehicles. One such collision many years ago led to my closest owl encounter ever when I rescued an eastern screech owl (like the one pictured) that had been struck along the highway.
At the close of my last column, which described a recent encounter with a pair of barred owls, I encouraged readers to head out to the nearest woodlot at dusk and ask who’s doing the cooking — an allusion to the most familiar call of this most common of owls: “Who? Who-cooks-for-you?”
On the very day that column hit print, my wife and I were making the rounds at a local thrift shop, and in one of those stranger-than-fiction twists that seem to find me with delightful regularity, I found myself face to face with a wonderful children’s book that encourages families to do the very same thing.
“Owl Moon” written by Jane Yolen and beautifully illustrated by John Schoenherr tells of the adventure of heading out into the forest on a snowy evening to call for owls. Told from the perspective of a young child, the book not only captures the wonder of the winter woods and the miracle of having wildlife respond in kind to one’s call, but also, more importantly, it carries home the fact that children who are raised with such experiences are enriched beyond measure.
A child who is raised with a sense of curiosity and wonder will carry those traits throughout life, and they will translate in a thousand different ways into a person that notices, respects and appreciates the beauty and wonder of creation. Ultimately, they may well pass those same values along to their own children.
Reading the book as an adult, it’s impossible to not imagine yourself as a young child pulled along on a similar adventure — even if such an excursion would have been impossible in your own experience, just as it was in mine. That’s the magic of the written word.
I’ll be doing my best to make sure my grandson, James, has as many “owling” adventures as possible growing up, but in the meantime, I plan on reading “Owl Moon” to him many times.
Back to more owl talk. The barred owl that surprised me on my bicycle ride last week was equally as startled by the presence of a bicyclist so close to its flight path. Owls and their day-roaming raptor brethren are unmatched in their ability to lock in on a target from a great distance, then carry through on an attack. The unfortunate consequence of such laser-like focus is a dangerous unawareness of everything else during that moment of pursuit.
Cars, trucks and, yes, sometimes even bicyclists approach at angles and speeds raptors are ill-adapted to notice until it’s too late. The tragic results dot the roadside and highway median.
Many decades ago I was driving on the interstate to an early morning meeting when I spotted an eastern screech owl standing wide-eyed on the roadside berm. Fresh out of college with a degree in biology, I presumed the bird had been put there by the universe as a specific test just for me.
After making not one but two illegal U-turns, I returned to the spot and carefully shooed the stupefied bird away from traffic, then gathered it up in my coat rather than leave it to perish on its own. The bird spent the meeting in a box on my back seat, after which I drove straight to my brother-in-law’s vet clinic, where he examined the bird.
“Nothing broken, but it seems to me this bird has had his bell rung by a car or truck,” he said. “Give him a couple of days. See if he’s willing to eat, and he may well get his wings back.”
The next week witnessed one of the most rapid recoveries I’ve been party to as the mitten-sized owl enjoyed a constant buffet of pet-store mice and creek chub baitfish while convalescing in a large dog cage in our basement. When I came home from work one day to find the cage empty, a panicked search led to a perch between the overhead joists at the far end of the basement from which the tiny owl slowly blinked with self-satisfaction.
I set a pie pan on the floor with just enough water to cover a finger-sized shiner and watched the bird glide silently across the span of the room to grab the fish with deadly gusto. I knew then that the healing was complete. At a nearby woodlot, the now healthy bird flew from my hand into the oak and beech canopy above. Mission accomplished.
It’s important to note that a similar situation today would merit an immediate call and transport to a licensed raptor rehab facility, none of which existed in the area back when my own story was unfolding. Nevertheless, the experience was one you can certainly imagine, thanks again to the magic of the written word.
Remember, if you have comments on this column or questions about the natural world, write The Rail Trail Naturalist, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email jlorson@alonovus.com.