Owling

Full moon names date back to Native Americans from the northern and eastern United States. It was a way for the tribes to keep track of the seasons. The Algonquin tribes referred to the full moon of January as the Wolf Moon. During the frigid midwinter, the hungry wolf packs would howl outside the villages of the Indian tribes. Thus, the name for January’s full moon. There is a chapter in my new YA novel, The Bread Crumb Trail, where the characters go owling. It  always helps to write what you know, so, I invited my husband to join me on an owling adventure. Serendipity struck and I located a class that was offering the experience of calling in an owl from the wild. I had heard many stories from fellow birders on their own success with calling in the owls and I wanted to have the experience first hand. The class was everything I had imagined it would be. The instructor successfully called in an Eastern Screech Owl. The Great Horned Owl didn’t show up, though. One out of two was okay with me. This past Wolf Moon, my husband and I ventured out to call in an Eastern Screech Owl, a permanent resident in our area. It’s the most common owl found on Long Island and it mates for life. It comes in two different colors, either gray or red. It breeds in cavities of trees, but will also use a nest box if they discover one. They are rarely seen during the day and their flight is completely silent due to their feathers. These medium sized owls measure about ten inches in height with a wing span of about eighteen inches. Sometime during the end of the month of March, they lay three to four eggs. The eggs incubate for thirty days. When the eggs hatch, they become nestlings for thirty days. The downy chicks remain with the parents for another six weeks. Sometime at the beginning of July, they leave the nest to fend for themselves. The weather was frigid on the eve of this past Wolf Moon. We bundled up in layers, put our binoculars around our necks, and headed to a location where both the Great Horned Owl and the Eastern Screech Owl had been spotted. I had downloaded the call of the Eastern Screech Owl onto my Samsung phone, put the volume up to high, and hoped for the best. Most vocalizations of the Eastern Screech Owls are trill-like. Males use trills in many situations, including territorial defense. The hoot, a soft, low-pitched hoot, is given when the owls suspect intruders or potential predators. The screech is a single loud, piercing call, followed by the trill vocalizations. We’d been told that depending on how the sound traveled and the mood of the owl on any particular night, the owl might appear or it might not. We stood in silence as I played the call of the Eastern Screech Owl, shivering and excited and hopeful. We listened, but no response. I played the call once again, and to our surprise an owl responded from deep within the forest. I played the call again, and this time the owl’s response sounded so much closer. We were nervous and excited. It was so cold outside and the moon was so bright we could see out breaths floating up towards the trees. Could we really be calling in an owl? I played the call one more time. Something inside me told me that the owl had arrived. I told my husband to shine the high-powered flashlight up into the big pine tree that stood in front of us. My husband whispered to me that there was nothing there.The thing is, though, I could feel its presence. I insisted he shine the light up into the trees and there the owl sat, nestled on a thick branch staring directly down at us. His big yellow eyes peered through the darkness like two tiny suns, his color was a brownish-red. I put my binoculars up to my eyes and stared right back at it. He turned his head in crazy directions and ruffled his feathers. It really did have a silent flight. It was absolutely amazing. After about six minutes, I played the call one more time and he spread his wings and swooped down on us, checking out if we were going to threaten him in his territory. We flinched and smiled and laughed. We had done it. We had called in an owl. My husband turned to me, gave me a kiss on the cheek, and called me an owl whisperer. How cool, I thought to myself.  What a spectacular full moon night it had been!