The Owls are Calling
Can you hear them?
Hello,
As soon as dusk falls, the Tawny Owls in the woods behind my house start to call. They’re defending their territories and looking for a mate which happens every Autumn, but it always takes me by surprise. Their ghostly voices are so clear and so loud.
I listen out for them as I close up the house each night and the sound is wonderful and eerie at the same time. I call a soft good night back to them, then shut the windows tight.
Sometimes their calls follow me into my dreams too. It’s not particularly soothing, but then truly wild things never are.
Owls have a curious place in our folklore. They are wise, ghostly, secretive, shrouded in superstition. They’re symbols of good luck in some cultures, but bad luck in many others. And, of course, they’re intrinsically linked to witchcraft. Name me a witch in popular culture that doesn’t have either a black cat or a snowy owl.
Perhaps it’s the wildness of their call, coming out of an inky sky, that gives them this reputation.
If you’ve ever been outside at dusk and heard an owl shriek you’ll know it’s not an altogether comforting sound. It’s a little ghostly, you can never quite tell where it’s coming from, sometimes it feels like a warning, or a cry of something otherworldly.
Or perhaps it’s because an owl is an invisible creature out there in the dark. Silent with fast wings and sharp claws; it can see you, but you can’t see it. Under the cloak of night it becomes a shapeshifter, a dragon, a demon. It has moonlight in its eyes and stars dusted across its wings. It’s scary and magnificent. No wonder it appears in so many of our stories.
And on a dark Autumn night when you hear its call drifting though an open window, it’s the sound of a thousand myths and folktales coming back to life, for just a moment. And that’s why it raises the hairs on the back of your neck.
Because, amazingly, this mythical creature is something we are lucky enough to still have living amongst us.
So if you want to stir something ancient and wild in your soul this month, and you live in the UK, listen out for the Tawny Owls at dusk.
If you’re lucky enough to hear one, enjoy the little chill that runs down your spine. Then try hooting back. They sometimes reply and that’ll really make you jump!
Here are a couple more Owl-y links to further reading if I’ve piqued your interest:
How to identify UK owl calls: My son can do a pitch-perfect Long Eared Owl call after listening to this. I can’t do any of them, as he repeatedly tells me.
The best modern owl story ever. This tiny news story first appeared in 1997. But I will never tire of reading or sharing it.
Take care,
Vicky
I'm in the northern US and we have Great Horned Owls in our neighborhood. We tend to hear them in the pre-dawn hours. It's really lovely to hear them softly hooting just as you're emerging from sleep.
I have never noticed owls as much as this year. They live in the trees in our garden and call through the night sometimes keeping my daughter awake because her room overlooks them. It's a sound that never fails to get my attention.