My neighbour, the barn owl
Back garden nature diary. Saturday, 6th May, 2023. Ribble Valley, UK.
Hello you,
I honestly didn’t know what I was going to say to you today, then a version of this appeared in my notebook. Very happy to share it here with you.
Janelle x
I am awoken by the best of alarms. A clashing yet beautiful cacophony of honks, coos and tuneful tweets.
Should I try and get back to sleep?
I roll over, close my eyes and lie for a few moments. Silly really, because I know full well that I’m getting up and going outside, even if it is five something AM.
I tiptoe downstairs (that’s a lie, sorry T) wrapping myself in fleecy, woolly layers whilst the kettle boils.
I open the window to let the cat out into the misty morning. Then, I spot a tell-tale creamy-white blob on the fence in the distance. I inhale an excited breath.
Is it?
I pick up my perfectly-placed binoculars. (Yes, I have binoculars now and they are kept on the windowsill in case of any urgent wildlife-sighting emergencies). I whip them up to my still morn-bleary eyes.
Yes!
My heartbeat quickens and I’m smiling like a little kid on their birthday.
The barn owl!
The barn owl accidentally but perfectly got named Guillermo after two Whatsapp conversations, one about the owl and one about What We Do in the Shadows, crossed over. That’s how he (or she?) has been referred to in our house ever since.
Guillermo is on the fence post. I’ve never seen him bent over in this way before. I observe for a few more thrilling seconds and see that he has a creature hanging out of his beak! He is jolting his head backwards to chomp it down his gullet. Wow.
An elusive fellow, he is usually a white smudge in the sky, not staying still long enough for me to study him closely. But today, he’s really giving me a show.
The thought that lives on repeat in my head plays again. I love living here.
The end of this month (May) will mark one year since we made our life-changing move from the petrol-scented, crowded city suburbs to the countryside.
Guillermo was one of the first neighbours we ‘met’. He’s been a consistent and reassuring presence throughout our first year here, almost as regular as our milk delivery from Charlotte. I start the day on an optimistic front-foot if it begins with a sighting of G, like when he flaps across my path during my morning run.
I dare to venture outside to see if maybe, just perhaps, I can get even closer to Guillermo today. I’m pushing my luck.
Phone in hand and binocs around my neck, I find myself crouching behind a bush in our garden (which I still can’t tell you the name of) like a regular David A.
He’s still there!
I lift up my phone and zoom 10x so that I can re-watch and share this moment later. But on screen, Guillermo is reduced to a smush of grey and beige pixels. I guess this magic moment is just for me, just for now.
As I’m writing this down now, fancying myself as a nature writer and then feeling like a gigantic imposter, I realise with shame that I haven’t so much as Googled barn owls this whole year. This is despite looking out for our local owly nearly every day. I don’t even know if he is a boy or what he’s up to at springtime.
Well, according to page 190 of The Field Guide to Birds of Britain, it’s hard to tell males and females apart. But it does say that the male feeds the female during egg incubation and the timing could be about right-ish.
Is that what you’re doing Guillermo?
The first time I ever saw him, we were casually sitting watching telly in our bare-walled new house. I literally squealed and ran to the window with my hands over my mouth.
“Oh my God did you see that!” I asked T, dancing and giddy. I then messaged everyone I knew to tell them.
Could there be anything more frickin’ idyllic? Could there be anything more dreamily opposed to our former view of the tram tracks, the Morrisons car park and back of Screwfix?
The book also says that barn owls were historically seen as bad omens. Their eerie shrieks would send chills down the backs of any human who heard them. “Geoffrey Chaucer, in the 14th century, referred to the bird as a ‘prophet of woe’ and mischance.’”
How could this be? Ever since we moved here, Guillermo has been my good omen. My reassurance. He’s been my nod from the universe that we did the right thing by making this move into the unknown.
And it’s Guillermo’s doing that at the age of 33 I have finally stopped, finally looked up and finally looked around to observe nature around me. Far too late, I know. I’m still totally ignorant and have everything to learn. But that’s going to change.
Thank you, wise owl Guillermo for the reminder that it is never too late to see things with fresh eyes, from a new point of view.
Janelle x
Thanks so much for sharing that moment with us, Janelle! It is so lovely to be able to appreciate these small creatures who share this world with us. It so much brings to mind this poem that I used many years ago as part of the inspiration for an exhibition I participated in. So much richness if we stop and wonder.
WHITE OWL FLIES INTO AND OUT OF THE FIELD," BY MARY OLIVER
Coming down
out of the freezing sky
with its depths of light,
like an angel,
or a buddha with wings,
it was beautiful
and accurate,
striking the snow and whatever was there
with a force that left the imprint
of the tips of its wings —
five feet apart — and the grabbing
thrust of its feet,
and the indentation of what had been running
through the white valleys
of the snow —
and then it rose, gracefully,
and flew back to the frozen marshes,
to lurk there,
like a little lighthouse,
in the blue shadows —
so I thought:
maybe death
isn't darkness, after all,
but so much light
wrapping itself around us —
as soft as feathers —
that we are instantly weary
of looking, and looking, and shut our eyes,
not without amazement,
and let ourselves be carried,
as through the translucence of mica,
to the river
that is without the least dapple or shadow —
that is nothing but light — scalding, aortal light —
in which we are washed and washed
out of our bones.
I have ‘my owl’ that I never see but I hear, which is so deliciously thrilling, each night just before I pop the ear buds in for a sleep meditation. Ours is a tawny, in fact it must be two because we hear the twit and the twooo. The twooo (male) is closer in sound and they’re in the woods at the bottom of our lane I think. I love living in the countryside and cannot ever see me back in a city. Thanks for sharing! I now need names for my owl/s too :)