(HOST) Commentator Ted Levin photographs and writes about the natural world, and lately he’s been stepping outside his house at night – to listen.
(LEVIN) Every once in a great while, long after the sun sets and the moon disappears behind the pines, the mid-winter silence of Coyote Hollow is broken by the call of the barred owl, sounding like he’s hollering from the void. If the air is brittle – cold, crisp, unforgiving – the owl’s voice rings like a tuning fork.
As the message rides the night currents, I face the sound and wonder who else is listening? I wonder if a soft, bug-eyed flying squirrel, gliding from tree to tree is tuned-in or maybe a busy mouse. For squirrel or mouse the owl is the grim reaper, soft of feather, gliding silently like a bad dream, all talons and beak, feasting on the unwary.
The blood of squirrels and mice runs cold when they hear his call echo through the shadowy trees. His movements are measured; every glide purposeful. And for the innocent, like the very season itself, the owl is unforgiving.
The owl is a hungry, relentless, pent up ball of energy, penetrating the darkness with huge, round eyes and inner ears that twitch like radar. Successful night hunting means survival.
I imagine the barred owl on his perch. He’s round-headed and slightly larger than a crow. His back is gray-brown and he has white horizontal bars on the breast and vertical streaks on the belly. His head swivels as his eyes gather light – and his ears track sound – a one-creature triangulation unit. When the owl hears the footfalls of a mouse equally loud in both ears, he faces the
source, and he sees it with remarkable detail; his round, black eyes devour night, even those of the darkest pitch.
When the owl leaves his perch, he floats across the glade, dark bird over dark andscape, a shadow crossing a diamond sky. Once he’s gone, the night draws quiet again. Then, the calls resume from another dark corner of the valley, staccato barks with six or seven hollow hoots rising at the end. I can tell he’s on the hill beyond the wetland now, along the valley’s eastern apron, where mink are in the marsh and weasels in the woods. They compete with the owl for nervous rodents. But for mink and weasel, the call of the owl on this frosty night is a reminder that hunter may also be the hunted.
Once again, I hear the voice from far away, captain of the gloom, seasonal crooner, a feathered-wraith who animates night and awakens silence. I can’t imagine Coyote Hollow without an owl’s voice. He makes January shadows twitch as he trolls for food. And he makes my nocturnal walks an adventure in a land transformed by darkness.
Photo courtesy of John Berg and the Vermont Institute of Natural Science.