One recent morning, I woke up to a cacophony of bird calls, and was puzzled. My daughter said it was a loud avian protest against the presence of an owl. She led me to a window and showed me a large owl perched on the iron bracket of an awning. I had no idea why the birds should be that hostile to one of their own kind. They, of course, knew the owl was a nocturnal bird and had no business to be around by day.
The birds, singly and in small flocks, would make forays to the owl’s perch, obviously to confirm and reconfirm that it was indeed an owl. They then “mobbed” the owl, as birds are known to do. The owl, of course, was wise. It kept its peace and the protesters slowly dispersed in despair. The owl then preened itself and posed for a photo-shoot by my daughter. The avian cacophony was repeated in the evening. We noticed the owl was still on its perch. It was around for another day and then disappeared.
I had been familiar with owls from my childhood days in my village. On many an evening, after twilight had set in, I had watched them quietly landing on rats, picking them up with their talons, flying off to a low branch of a tree and feasting on them.
Children were scared of the hooting of owls from close quarters at their bedtime. Often an outdoor help would be asked to scare the birds away. He would stone them away, but the owls, always in pairs, returned later and carried on their hooted dialogue.
There is a particular kind of owl whose call is a dreadful poovvaaah! It carries a mile. Folklore has interpreted the call literally as “Let’s go” in Malayalam. That owl is called the Kaalankozhi, or the fowl of death.
In the Mahabharata, Ashwathama’s nightly attack on the Pandava camp was inspired by an owl’s stealthy savaging of crows sleeping on a tree.
It is hard to be sentimental about an owl. The bird is not endearing by any stretch of the imagination. And yet there are many poems on owls in English! Edward Lear goes and unites an owl with, of all things, a pussycat, creating a magical world! In Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne has immortalised an owl, or rather ‘Wol’ as spelt by Christopher Robin. Edward Thomas’ The Owl is a telling commentary on a very bleak wintry night in the British countryside.
I still somehow can’t believe that an owl had come visiting and stayed in full view at close quarters for more than a day. Was it fleeing from an enemy? Or was it conveying some mysterious message? I can of course dismiss it as an accidental occurrence but I suppose it is in human nature to seek reasons where none exist.
Let’s leave it at that!
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