Losing the Barn Owl's Voice.

I was coming in from the garden at dusk as the air fell below freezing, when I spotted a movement above my head. I looked up to see a barn owl settling to perch on the telegraph pole just beyond my hedge. It folded its wings and began to stare at me intensely, occasionally moving its head from side to side in that curious manner which owls are wont to exhibit.

I stared back. I greeted it courteously. I wondered whether it was considering my size to determine whether I was too big to eat. It stayed there and continued to give me its undivided attention, while I almost forgot the cold because the stare of an owl at such close quarters – especially a ghost-white barn owl – is little short of hypnotic.

It’s rare to see a barn owl here. I’m sure they’ve always been about, but a sighting depends on the coincidence of a bird beginning its nightly hunt in this part of the Shire and in the few minutes before I disappear indoors.

I remember that time shortly after I moved here when I was shaken in the early hours by a terrifying shriek puncturing the silence of the night as one flew overhead. It was the shriek to which Shakespeare was referring when he had Macbeth say:

The time has been my senses would have cooled

To hear a night shriek…

I’ve never heard one since then, even though I’ve occasionally seen one. It makes me wonder whether that’s another of the changes brought on by changing times and changing practices. I wonder whether the barn owl has lost its shriek as most roses have lost their scent.