Barred Owls and Me

Barred Owl, January 11, 2021, Southern, New Hampshire, USA

I don’t know what it is about me and Barred Owls, but for whatever reason, we find each other. They stop me in my tracks and I feel truly blessed to see each and every one of them.

But I can’t shake the feeling that I can almost feel when a barred owl is around. I know that sounds totally “woo-woo”, “out there” and literally unbelievable. I agree.

I am not prone to magical thinking, I read lots of non-fiction about birds and animals and nature in general. I believe in science. I don’t tend to lean towards new agey thinking and if someone said that to me, I would dismiss it out of hand.

But hiking through one of my favorite places this morning I said – out loud to my dog – “Nyxie, there is an owl in here, I feel it, let’s go find her…”. And we turned the corner and there she was. Giant, piercing brown eyes staring at me. I put Nyxie into a sit, stay, removed my lens cap and shot off a few photos before the owl took flight and landed higher into a nearby white pine.

This is not the first time this has happened to me. I have been able to track them for photos, not by sound, or footprints, but by what I can only describe as “a feeling”. This has happened too with white tailed deer. Maybe this is what people call "Instinct". I don't know.

Of course, for either of these species, there are other times when I follow the usual natural cues… a mob of blue jays will give away an owl or a hawk easily. And a few well placed hoof prints will let me know how recently a deer has passed and also will give an approximate clue to the size of animal it might be. Those things are second nature to me now, having grown up in New Hampshire and spending as much time in the woods as I have in my lifetime. Some things you learn and don’t forget.

None of that is mystical or magic, its how nature works and generally I understand those things much better than most other things in my life.

But there is something else on some of these mornings that I simply can not explain. I’m not naïve enough to think that we understand everything there is to know about the human brain.

I have to assume that somewhere deep in my reptilian brain there is a sense that I don’t know that I have. Maybe somewhere deep inside my brain I can smell them, or maybe there is an echo of the past that can sense that the forest has a different feeling within it.

I know that there are other related things that can’t be fully explained. Plenty of them. Im sure there are lots of things that science will eventually catch up with. Not sure “magically” finding owls is top on the list of researchers… but if it ever is, feel free to call me. I’d love to be involved.