Animal Magnetism

Mother’s Gift of Nature

So many different kinds of owls lived near us or in the old outbuildings. We had barn owls, screech owls, the Great Horned Owl, and one hard winter we even had a white owl, the most beautiful bird I’d ever seen. I’ve never seen another one in these parts. That was in 1953.

If I was quiet in the winter, I was allowed to stay up and read late. In the summers, Mother allowed me to stay outside late. I’d listen to the owls talk. If they were angry or giving warning, the noise was harsh, hard on human ears. They’d coo and cackle happily, too. The mating calls were pretty, especially those of the Great Horned. I loved to listen to them answer one another.

People who aren’t close to animals explain their behavior in utilitarian terms. I believe most of the higher vertebrates are capable of joy. Sometimes, hearing the owls, I felt they burbled, gurgled, and sang for the joy of being alive. This is especially obvious with songbirds such as cardinals.

When I was in school we were taught that the females are capable of singing, but only the males do it. This isn’t true. Sometimes, if you listen carefully, the male may start a song, but then the female comes in and they sing a duet so finely tuned it sounds like one bird. The song is clear with distant cadence, long notes, short notes in predicable progression. It’s an easy song for a human to whistle.

Their eyesight is so superior to ours, we can’t imagine it, just like we can’t imagine how fast a fox processes information. Birds fly high, diving down to grab a mouse or a fish. Not the seed eaters but the flesh eaters. They fold their wings next to their bodies and dive. The waterbirds go straight into the water. The ground birds open their wings at the last moment and grab their prey feet first.

Owls have soft feathers. They fly silently. No rustle. A blackbird has noisy feathers. You can hear them overhead.

One crisp night in early winter I asked my mother, “How many owls do you know?”

“Ha. More than you. Put your coat on.”

We bundled up. It was way past my bedtime but Mother could be flexible. I had to keep Mickey and Chaps inside. She said they’d spoil it.

We walked outside. The ground was hard with heavy frost. A stone bench was planted under a huge old hickory. We sat down. Soon enough we heard the owls calling to one another. Mother, a keen birder, identified the various notes. Some were “You’re in my territory” calls. Others were a simple “Hi.” A few registered complaints, loud and clear. Due to the cold, there were no insects. The only sounds were owls calling, the occasional bleat of a cow, and the rustling of a nocturnal creature. There weren’t as many deer back then so I heard none. The deer are easy to identify by sound.

I often recall that bright, cold night when Mother eagerly shared her love of nature. She taught me to recognize many birdcalls. I might know fifty, sixty at most. I still have trouble sorting out the different warbler calls, but most birdcalls are very clear once you memorize them. A goldfinch or indigo bunting sounds nothing like a bluejay. There are some variations, though, in, say, a thrush. They express some individuality.

Bluejays can mimic, just like catbirds and mockingbirds. What fun to hear them. The bluejays in particular can be creative. They’ll swoop near a bird feeder and sound like a ferocious predator bird. This scatters the little birds. Then down they pop to eat up everything. One spring day, Mother, on that same bench, whistled various tunes to a mockingbird, who reproduced them exactly.

Why? Does it matter? I am weary of people needing reasons. What mattered was that the mockingbird delighted Mother, myself, and apparently itself.

“Birds tell you the weather,” Mother told me. “You know the birds that leave for winter. If they leave early, it will be an early winter. But all birds can tell you when storms are coming. They hop around and talk a lot way before the storm hits. Eat what they can. Then all of a sudden they’re in their nests and cubbyholes. When it’s quiet like that, won’t be long.”

As the decades have rolled on, I’ve continued to study birds. I’m hardly an expert. For one thing, my study often focuses on hunting. When I hunt my foxhounds, the birds are invaluable to me. If the goldfinches fill the bushes, along with other small birds, I know my fox has not passed by in the last fifteen minutes. If they’re up in the trees and chattering, then they’ve been disturbed. Now, it may not be the fox that disturbed them, but something has, and I’d best be alert.

Blackbirds hate foxes. They’ll mob them sometimes. They make a specific sound much like a mob of humans, whose reason, or at least sense of responsibility, seems to diminish the bigger the group gets. Shakespeare wrote scathingly of the mob, and he was right. Blackbirds seem to possess these same qualities. Their mobbing is hostile. If I hear that sound, I can be pretty sure my fox is moving and they are flying over him or her. But blackbirds also gossip. How they gossip. If only I knew what they were saying. You can hear them making a clicking sound, a happy sound as they merrily blather on. Then there’s the distinctive call note. Most birds have a call note as well as a true song. I wouldn’t say that blackbirds sing, but they do emit a series of notes that probably pass as a song among them. This music is precious to someone studying foxes.

Owls can tell you a lot about foxes, too. Sometimes they will shadow a fox, going from tree to tree or flying over the animal. Took me years to figure out why. It should have been obvious, but I never said I was smart. Foxes and owls hunt the same game. One can assist the other, whether it’s intentional or not. An owl isn’t going to swoop down and steal the fox’s kill because the fox can and will catch it. Given the talons and a good-sized owl, this can be a bloody, costly struggle. But once the fox picks up its rabbit or mouse and moves on, the owl can fly down and kill any mice lurking about.

Occasionally I’ll see raptors watching foxes, too, pretty much for the same reason as the owls. The raptors—hawks, falcons, and kites—have an Achilles’ heel. Sooner or later, they have to let you know how important they are. And the sounds they make are truly distinctive, piercing and easy to read. The owls—maybe they are wiser—shut up. So do the foxes, for the most part.

We humans, like the raptors, belong to the babbling class. We even pay people to talk. This would astonish even the most garrulous blackbird. It astonishes me, but I like the paycheck.