Leigh Calvez - The Hidden Lives Of Owls: The Science and Spirit of Natures Most Elusive Birds

Copyright 2016 by Leigh Calvez

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by Sasquatch Books

Editor: Gary Luke
Production editor: Em Gale
Design: Joyce Hwang
Illustrations: Tony Angell
Copyeditor: Elizabeth Johnson

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN: 978-1-63217-025-5
eBook ISBN: 978-1-63217-026-2

Sasquatch Books
1904 Third Avenue, Suite 710
Seattle, WA 98101
(206) 467-4300
www.sasquatchbooks.com

v3.1

For Mom and Dad

In keeping with the customary rule established by the International Ornithologists Union, all official bird names are capitalized.

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

g.

h.

i.

j.

k.

a. Great Gray Owl: length, 24 to 33.1; wingspan, 53.9 to 60.2

b. Snowy Owl: length, 20.5 to 28; wingspan, 49.6 to 57

c. Great Horned Owl: length, 18.1 to 24.8; wingspan, 39.8 to 57.1

d. Barred Owl: length, 16.9 to 19.7; wingspan, 39 to 43.3

e. Northern Spotted Owl: length, 18.5 to 18.9; wingspan, 39.8

f. Long-eared Owl: length, 13.8 to 15.7; wingspan, 35.4 to 39.4

g. Short-eared Owl: length, 13.4 to 16.9; wingspan, 33.5 to 40.6

h. Burrowing Owl: length, 7.5 to 9.8; wingspan, 21.7

i. Saw-whet Owl: length, 7.1 to 8.3; wingspan, 16.5 to 18.9

j. Northern Pygmy Owl: length, 6.3 to 7.1; wingspan, 15

k. Flammulated Owl: length, 5.9 to 6.7; wingspan, 16.1

In the dim light of evening, you step out of the forest. A sudden movement startles you, as a large bird on silent wings flies in front of you. Your heart pounds in your chest, not in fear but with the thrill of seeing a wild owl. You walk on, one foot in front of the other, hoping to get a glimpse of the wise bird just ahead on a branch overlooking the trail. To your surprise, the owl remains still, silent, watching. You notice first her round owl face and her curved owl beak, her wings folded by her sides and her long black talons gripping the branch on which she sits. She looks down at you with big yellow eyes. A bit uncomfortable with her deep stare, you wonder what she knows. You sit down on a rock covered with green moss and needles from a nearby fir, to watch and wait, as if for a lesson. You are owling.

Our association with owls dates back millennia, David H. Johnson, director of the Global Owl Project (GLOW), told me. He has spent twelve years studying owls in myth and culture around the world and has made many interesting discoveries.

In north-central Australia, a unique rocky outcropping overlooks the outback. Here, the Wardaman Tribe believes their creator being, Gordol the owl, first created the world. In southwestern Australia, the Nyungar Tribe protects a standing owl stone, Boyay Gogomat, the sacred and powerful creator, healer, and destroyer. In Europe, hunter-gatherer people of the Stone Age carved a Long-eared Owl in the Chauvet Cave, home to the second-oldest cave paintings in France at about 32,400 years old. The owls long association with the Greek goddess of wisdom, Athena, gave rise to the Burrowing Owls scientific name, Athene cunicularia. For centuries, the Ainu people of northeastern Japan have revered the Blakistons Fish Owl, the heaviest owls in the world weighing as much as ten pounds, as the Emperor of the Night or the God That Protects the Village. The Mayans wore owl amulets upside down so that the protective owl spirit could look up at the person it was protecting. In Kazakhstan, there exists a mountain range where only female shamans go to connect with the spirit of the owl. The Scandinavian Sami people believe that owls are good luck. And the Native American Navajo believe owl and coyote hold the balance of day and night.

Beliefs, opinions, and superstitions about owls vary widely from culture to culture even today. In South Africa, owls are associated with witchcraft and bad luck; to call someone there an owl is the highest insult. In Jamaican folk tradition, if an owl flies by your house it means death. But in Mongolia, owls are powerful spirits that keep away bad luck; owl feathers are tied on baby cribs for protection, and at a popular owl festival each year, women in owl headdresses dance for vitality, prosperity, and wealth. In Turkey, a waitress told David Johnson that if an owl hoots twice around a pregnant woman, its a boy, if three times, its a girl, adding, Doesnt everybody know that? And when David took a group of fourteen- and fifteen-year-old members of the Umatilla tribe out to see the Burrowing Owls he studies at the Umatilla Chemical Depot in northeastern Oregon, the kids wouldnt even look at the owls at first. In many Native American tribes, the powerful owl is for the tribes shaman only. Some people even believe theres a connection between owls and extraterrestrials. Writer and artist Mike Clelland, who writes about owls and mythology, believes that there is a synchronistic link between owls and UFO sightings. What is it about owls that makes them so mysterious and fascinating to us?