by Darcy Dean
I was so excited: it was finally happening! I quickly shrugged on my giant jacket and stepped outside into the darkness of the night with only the radiant beams of moonlight to guide my way. As I trudged into the woods, I checked my pockets one last time to be sure I had everything. Phone, check; extra toboggan, check; emergency flashlight, check; and finally, owl call, check. I was good to go!
I only had to walk a little way down the trail to reach my deer stand, where I would sit for hours upon end, but I wouldn’t shoot anything today. I was going owl calling. I’d never been owl calling before, but I was going tonight. As I slowly crept towards the deer stand, I recalled the reason that I became so interested in these mysterious creatures in the first place.
The woods surrounding my house are full of barred owls, which are my favorite species of owl. I have grown up listening to them for my entire life, but I’d never really thought about them until a few years ago because I had always taken them for granted. One day I was turkey hunting with my uncle, and he pulled out a call that he had stashed among his many turkey calls. It was an owl call! I was totally taken by surprise when a turkey and multiple owls called back. Ever since that day, owls have been my favorite animal and I can’t escape my fascination with them. I ended up buying my own owl call but I haven’t used it only for turkey hunting. I invented my own reason to hang out in the woods: I call it owl calling.
When I got to my deer stand, I had to climb all the way up the ladder while being restrained by my thick coat and overalls and worrying about things falling out of my pockets, but, when I made it to the top, I immediately started calling out to the owls. I started with my favorite barred owl call, a “who-cooks-for-you who-cooks-for-you-all" pattern. They didn’t call back, but I was not going to give up. I tried again and again until eventually I got one to respond.
Once one responded, the call caught like wildfire and soon it sounded like there was an owl on every tree. All of them were singing their haunting tunes and they all came together like a spooky symphony. They were surrounding me on all sides, but I never got to see them because it was dark and they all stayed in their own trees. They called for about 15 minutes total and never called to me again on that night, but after that experience, I knew that my amazement at these magnificent creatures would never cease.
After that night, my fascination with owls remained and I began taking the moles and voles that my barn cats killed to the deer stand in hopes that the owls would come directly to the stand give me the opportunity to see them. The only things that the bait attracted, however, were ants. I stopped my experimentation with that soon after it started, but from there I started sleeping in the treehouse that my brother, my dad, and I built over quarantine. I would sleep out there in my warm, snuggly sleeping bag and listen for owls and occasionally call back to them. Sometimes on the weekends I will still sleep out there under the starry sky and feel the peaceful energy that seems to resonate through everything at night. Often, I will simply call to the owls and listen to them call back.
To read Darcy's second installment in "The Call of the Wild," click here.
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