A barred owl surveys its woodland in a suburb of Portland, Oregon. Photo by Robyn Schmidt.
By Ron Schmidt
If you’ve been outside at night the last month or so, like me, perhaps you’ve heard the distant hoot of a barred or great horned owl. They are magical to me, and I’ve listened for them for 25 years.
It really makes me happy when I hear one, especially the barred owl with its distinctive who-cooks-for-you or who-cooks-for-you-all. The great horned owl has a deeper sound and a different rhythm, with two lower-pitched hoots followed by a one-second pause, then a single hoot and another one-second pause, and the last single hoot. The sounds are hard to describe in words, but you can use your smartphone or device to ask for the sounds to be played and listen to recordings of their actual calls.
The last month, owls in our woods have been bonding with their mates in preparation for nesting, which they do in late February and early March. It’s hard to believe they can hatch eggs during a time of year when we are shivering and hoping our woodstoves or furnaces do not fail us. Sometimes you can hear the mating pair talking to each other in separate trees and making many different sounds. Hearing them is a special treat.
Night music
I first fell in love with barred owls when I bought my cabin in the woods south of Grand Marais in Michigan’s Eastern Upper Peninsula. While sitting around my first campfire, I heard a barred owl calling about a quarter of a mile away. I listened for them each night of that late August and heard one or two calling nearly every night, before I had to head south across the Big Mac for winter.
The next summer, when I was at my cabin for a longer period, I heard two young owls nearby making their own unique sounds, raspy calls rising in pitch. I learned their parents put them in their own patch of woods to learn how to hunt for food and take care of themselves. Of course, they aren’t happy about this arrangement, and “mine” made pitiful calls most of the night for a few weeks. Their parents stay close, though, and keep an eye on them to be sure they are safe.
You may have heard the old story that if you hear an owl calling (you name) it means your death is soon to follow. To me and my friends, that’s a silly tale. We’ve all been hearing them for more than a quarter century and we’re all still healthy and wise.
Happy hoots
In 2016, I sold my cabin and moved for a year to Portland, Ore., where my twin daughters live. It was a big change moving to the outskirts of a city with a half-million people. Happily, there was a big wilderness park surrounding my dwelling, and I was overjoyed to begin hearing barred owls again nearly every night, hooting right outside my window. Daughter Robyn still lives in that house and hears them after returning home from work. She has seen them catch prey occasionally, and we both like to think they’re keeping watch over her.
Now I live in the woods in Benzie County. I haven’t heard barred owls in the five years I’ve lived here. It’s disappointing, since my friends living near Manistee hear them all the time. Last night, though, while taking my black Labrador Lila outside, I heard in the northwest a great horned owl calling. It lightened my heart and made me very happy. I had to stay outside for a long while listening to its distant hooting.
Even if you don’t have a reason to be outside after dark, it might be worth spending a half hour or so after sunset in a quiet location to listen for the joyous call of owls.
Children’s author Ron Schmidt and his Leader Dog Lila live in the north woods, where they listen to birds and music and wait patiently for the call of owls.
