March 15, 2018
Northern Pygmy-Owl
Northern Pygmy-Owl
“Owl” stirs the soul of man more than mention of any other avian family, undoubtedly because it evokes memories that lie deep in the hidden recesses of human DNA.  Memories from a time when we first arose from the primordial soup, saw that owls plied the darkness of night on silent wings, and heard their frightful vocalizations pierce that darkness.  Our primeval ancestors responded with either fear or fealty to forces they could not comprehend.

This dichotomy of responses to “owl” continues today amongst birders.  Let me give you two extreme examples.  The first occurred several years ago at a well-known southeast Arizona birding hotspot.  An out of state photographer on a mission to photograph every species of North American owl scrambled up a steep, rocky mountain slope in broad daylight with all his camera gear after a Northern Pygmy-Owl had been reported roosting at the top.  I watched from a trail across a ravine as the man dislodged large rocks, plunged through underbrush, and noisily corroborated every cliché concerning clueless, arrogant, slob bird photographers.  I saw the owl fly off, probably laughing to itself as it left.

The second example occurred last month when a well-meaning birder reported a Great Horned Owl nest in a sconce on the outside of a school building.  He cautioned that the school grounds were secured but observers could view the nest with binoculars from outside the fence.  Though this is our most common and widespread owl and the nest was inaccessible except for viewing with binoculars, he was immediately chastised, roundly and publicly, on social media for having reported the location.

I think birders who take pride in righteously and officiously living by a code of silence regarding the reporting of any and all owls need to take a deep breath.  Here’s why.  I was introduced to birds as a toddler but was never a birder or spent time in the field until I bought my first guide book in my mid-twenties.  But that purchase and a subsequent year or so looking for and at birds did not provide my first “WOW” moment, that point where I stood looking at a bird in awe, knowing that I was experiencing something unique and beautiful that would change my life, special enough to inspire passion, research, travel, and activism.

No, my seminal moment didn’t occur until one winter day when Deva and I drove the berms at Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge in northwest Missouri watching eagles harass the geese.  Stopping to glass a large pond, I glanced up at the tree beside which we had parked.  My breath caught, tingling nerves crawled up my spine, and I was rendered motionless and speechless.  A Great Horned Owl stared at me from twenty feet away, the space between us unencumbered by limbs or leaves.

I’m confident in thinking many other birders’ seminal moment came with an owl as the second party.  That moment when the heart stops and the burn to see and know more morphs into a lifetime vocation, avocation, or environmental advocacy.  We’re all aware that we must “grow our game.”  Owls, more than any other family of birds, can do that.  They are a fascinating, breath taking trove of evolutionary adaptations, all the more awesome because so rarely seen.  They are, I would think, always a gateway to a lifetime of pleasure in and mindfulness of the natural world.

Certainly we should be circumspect with access to the rarer owl species and any nests in busy public places, but to make even the mention of owls verboten on social media would seem to deny fellow birders and our avian friends some of their most valuable ambassadors.  Owls have been embedded in man’s psyche since the beginning, and the opportunity to see and celebrate them reminds us who we are, whence we came, and where we might be going.  Please share responsibly, but do share.
Great Horned Owls
Great Horned Owls