Meteowls!

by Tom Shafer

October 9, 2018

So, last evening I slipped into my hot tub around 2 a.m. to soak my aching back (surgery pending, but a story for another day) and take in the annual Draconid meteor shower.  To be honest, I was much more interested in immersing my back in the hot, bubbling water because the Draconids are not typically prolific.  Actually, I may have had a better chance of seeing Bigfoot or a duocorn (think unicorn with an extra horn!).  Though unusually warm for the second week of October, it was still a nice evening for a soak.

As I peered up at a beautiful meteor-free sky, off in the distance I heard our Eastern screech owl, Eso, making his lonely trill.  Here, this is a nightly occurrence, though on this particular evening he seemed much further away than usual.  After several calls, Eso finally received an answer — though it wasn’t another Eastern screech.  Instead, it was the deep-throated “bark” of a barred owl, another nightly visitor.  For several minutes, the two communicated with each other, the warbly trill followed by a repeating bark, rinse and repeat.

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I couldn’t help but wonder what they were discussing.  Were these merely warning calls — a turf battle, Jets and Sharks (think the musical West Side Story) — gentle reminders that “mi casa es mi casa”?  Were they mutually disappointed in the meteor “shower,” both hoping that the Orionids (later in October) put on a better show?  Or were they arguing over the crazy, new rules governing “hits” on quarterbacks, eventually even postulating (like I have) that maybe quarterbacks should be wearing flags?  Perhaps they were debating the Kavanaugh confirmation, or even the upcoming midterm election.  Unfortunately, we will never know because I speak little-to-no owl.  Like other languages, I can only count numbers in owl: one, two-hoo, tha-ree — which, by the way, is the number of licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop.

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So, that was a long way to go to create a fun owl joke.  I could easily tell you that an owl with a sore throat doesn’t give a hoot, or that an owl dressed in armor is called a knight owl, or that an owl’s favorite subject in school is owl-gebra, or that an owl’s favorite Beatles song is “Owl You Need Is Love.”  However, all of that would be ridiculous.  Besides, it would just be proof that my dyslexia has reached a new owl.

Okay, owl jokes aside, I did very much enjoy listening to Eso “talk” to Bo (for barred owl — I’m not so imaginative with animal names.  I once had a dog named BrownDog and a cat named GreyCat).  Their “towlk” — er, talk really got me thinking: how magnificent and extraordinary is our world?  As I lay in the soothing water under a dark and wondrous sky, I was experiencing the complexity of life.  Crickets and katydids were chirping, a mockingbird was singing, coyotes were yelping, dogs were barking — and of course the owls were talking!  All on one planet, here in my backyard!  No matter how crazy it gets in the so-called real world of daytime, no one can take away the solitude and “true” reality of my nighttime world.

I hope you have your own “nighttime” world — even if it is in the stark light of day.

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