Jon and I watched this Barred Owl on our walk in the woods today. She soundlessly flew from one tree to the one in front of us, as if it was her idea to watch us.
I think watching her is the perfect meditation.
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An owl on my son’s birthday, perfect. Barred Owl’s eyes are so deeply mystical and a bit sad looking.
🙂
Thank you for this. We recently noticed a pair of barred owls hanging around a hollow in one of our trees. We hope they are nesting. I agree with Elizabeth about those eyes. They make them look so mysterious … and maybe wise?
That’s very cool Barbara! I hope you get to see the baby owls too.
We have a lot of Barred Owls over here in VT on the western-facing-slopes of the Green Mountains. I love to answer their Who-cooks-for-you call and sometimes they answer me back. A few summers ago I was standing out on our deck late at night looking at the stars, when I heard some calls I didn’t recognize but to me it sounded like a slide-whistle. So I got on the computer and asked what birds have a call that sound like a “slide whistle?” Back came the answer from the Cornell Ornithology’s Macauley Library that juvenile Barred Owls have a call like that. You can listen to bird calls on their website and sure enough that’s what I heard that night. It turned out that there was a pair of juveniles in the neighborhood.
I’m impressed Marcia. I have such a hard time distinguishing bird calls. I have heard the Barred Owl call though, I’ve notice the closer I am to the owl, the more rough and gritty it sounds, almost like a bark.
So unusual to see an Owl about during the day! She is beautiful. I watched a documentary about Owls, and they filmed one flying (it was a pet, so they could get it to fly when and where they wanted for the video team) and recorded the sound as she flew (there was none) and found they have special feathers that help them to be soundless. They are magical creatures!
They really do seem magical in their silende Karla. That’s very interesting about their feathers.
I was just thinking this morning about the fact that since childhood I have been conditioned to refer to most things (animals, religious figures, etc) where I don’t know the gender as “he” or a form of the word. As an example, I saw a squirrel this morning and I said: “hello mister squirrel”, then I thought about how many women now are replacing masculine references with feminine references. I corrected my self with “miss”. Then I saw the posts about this owl that you and Jon wrote and noticed that his reference used “he” and yours used “she”. Interesting.
Amanda
I do think about what pronoun to use when I don’t know the sex of an animal Amanda. I usually just go by what feels right. I really the got the feeling this owl was a female. But it may have more to do with how we identify.