When I first heard this sound, very late at night when I was sitting at my desk, I had no idea what it was.
I should have been used to weird wails in the night: the first time I heard a pack of coyotes massing together for a group howl, it made my scalp prickle. This wasn't the primal ascending moan of a wolf howl, but a high, falsetto trilling. punctuated by the odd husky bark that could NOT have been made by a dog. Hearing a dozen or so of them trilling and even squealing made me wonder if I was hearing things. I had to look up the sound of them on YouTube, of course. Coyotes do not sound AT ALL like the ridiculous noises from cowboy movies (likely made by wolf howls or even mastiff groans). REAL coyotes make weird, otherworldly, scalp-prickling soprano trills.
But this was different.
This was an almost fake-sounding owl call, a "too-whit, too-whooo!" like in an old cartoon. Then it got louder, then suddenly escalated into the most bizarre, apelike jungle sounds, and I knew I was hearing something wild.
When I looked out my window, I saw flashes of white diving and swooping between the treetops. I knew this was no kid pretending to be an owl.
And though I could not believe the jungle-sounding quality of the calls, I had to conclude we either had escaped chimpanzees, or owls in the back yard. I had to look up "Owls of British Columbia" on the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology (the BEST WEBSITE EVER, about anything at all - simple, elegant, beautiful to look at or spend time in, and PACKED with readily-summoned information, including what they eat, where they flock, and a dozen or so sounds each species produces) to make the match.
But it wasn't my last encounter with the spooky, magnificent barred owl of British Columbia. Walking along a very familiar stretch of trail which cut through my suburban neighborhood, I saw that telltale swooping flash of white. But it was daytime! Didn't owls sleep all day? Not this one, apparently. It looked to be a juvenile, still somewhat fuzzy of feather. I didn't have my camera (as I did a couple of years ago when I miraculously happened upon a small family of pileated woodpeckers on the same trail), and I think ran back to get it and feared I had missed the moment.
But then there was movement in the bushes.
On the forest floor, there was the owl, ripping a small dead animal into strips and devouring it with gusto. It was quite fascinating to watch. He or she had obviously been hunting during the day, and - even more miraculous - wasn't at all afraid of me, though I was only a few steps away. I never did get a good shot of it before it finished the daytime snack and flew off with a wide-winged swoop. I have since heard their weird cries during the day, and have even tried the trick of imitating their calls to attract them (though it never worked for me). But they are still a mysterious, wingy presence in my back yard, one owl calling to another or having three- or four-owl conversations from different parts of the woods.
I have one more barred owl story, and it isn't even mine. My daughter-in-law is hardly a bird watcher, in fact she is wary of them ever since seeing that Alfred Hitchcock movie as a kid. Late one night she heard a strange flapping noise in the back yard. Something had landed! She described it as a "great huge honkin' BIRD in the yard", which had landed on the top bar of the swing set to take a breather from the rigors of hunting. Then it took off and sailed away.
Here's the thing. I've never truly captured the sounds or sights of these birds, and even going on YouTube was a bit frustrating. But then I struck gold. There is an ENTIRE CHANNEL dedicated to owl sounds, and I did find splendid examples of those hoots and cries - BUT, the channel has still pictures only, and as usual I had to have visuals! So I cobbled together some photos - which I didn't take, unfortunately, but they do convey some of the eerie, mystical presence of these night birds.
So if you play the YouTube videos at the same time that you look at my gifs and stills, you will get some idea of the magic of these things with their wizardly swoops and whoops.
