It’s still winter for another 9 days

We had a barred owl visitor late yesterday. It perched on a bare, dead branch on the oak next to the rear deck. The owl’s presence didn’t seem to bother the cardinal pair that perched about 20 - 25 feet away on the same tree at about the same height. After something like an hour, the owl began its classic call: 

Barred Owls have a distinctive hooting call of 8–9 notes, described as “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?” This call carries well through the woods and is fairly easy to imitate. During courtship, mated pairs perform a riotous duet of cackles, hoots, caws and gurgles.

barred owl on an oak

Photo by J. Harrington

After a few calls the bird flew away, possibly to its mate since we’re somewhere around the beginning of nesting season.

This afternoon the birds and squirrels are piling in to the feeders in the midst of yet another snow storm. I’m fed up with writing about it so for now, owl be seeing you.

A Barred Owl

By Richard Wilbur

The warping night air having brought the boom

Of an owl’s voice into her darkened room,

We tell the wakened child that all she heard

Was an odd question from a forest bird,

Asking of us, if rightly listened to,

“Who cooks for you?” and then “Who cooks for you?”

Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,

Can also thus domesticate a fear,

And send a small child back to sleep at night

Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight

Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw

Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.

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