owl season
no, literally, it's owl season at my place
I live in the woods.
Living in the woods seemed like an okay idea at first. Then for the first year, it was enchanting. Now, three years in, it’s kind of annoying but also enchanting, at times. There are hazards to living in the woods, like, trees are always falling. Did you know this? A few weeks ago I was doing a photoshoot for an upcoming profile in Sidelines, an equestrian magazine, and I ran inside to change tops, and when I came back out, the photographer exclaims, “A tree just came crashing down over there! And your horses didn’t even look!”
Yeah, I said, apparently that’s a thing that happens here.
And I laughed because how typical that a tree would fall in the three minutes I’m inside, shimmying into my next top.
But the enchanting parts are pretty wonderful. The large and expanding deer family which roam our neighborhood and treat our driveways like deer highways have provided us with two bouncing fawns to watch this summer. The titmouse family which live conveniently next door to my bird feeders have grown their flock, as well. Every day a tiny hummingbird descends like a drone, checks out all my flowers, and then goes straight back up again, lending the best evidence yet to the position that birds aren’t real.
And there are the owls.
We have owls year-round. There are more owls in Florida now than there were when I was a child. Like a lot of predatory birds, there are just more of them, period. The DDT generations that were lost have been replaced by incredible numbers of bald eagles, several species of hawks, ospreys living every third electric pole along the coasts. It’s amazing, the way the birds have rebounded, and the way the soaring raptors seem to thrive amidst development. I guess it’s easier to spot mice when the grass is always mown.
(When I was a kid, seeing a bald eagle meant taking a bus tour at Kennedy Space Center and hoping the pair that lived in a tree visible from the road were on the nest (it was literally a highlighted attraction on the tour). Back in January, one flew past me while I was eating lunch on a cruise ship in Port Canaveral. I have seen bald eagles while at the Magic Kingdom, I have seen bald eagles eating roadkill along the side of I-4 more than once. They’re not quite everywhere but there are a lot of them.)
Still, I was used to seeing bald eagles before I’d ever even heard an owl.
The owls here are barred owls. They call, “who-who-who-who, who-who-WHO-WHO” with this rich, full, deep voice. Sometimes they just say, “whooooooo” into the evening air. And what I like best is when they call to each other and it all just turns into higher and higher-pitched cackles. They sound like they’re shrieking with demonic laughter. The woods, man.
The owls are talkative year-round but in summer they’re also very visible. They start hunting in late evening, before sunset, so we see them swooping and soaring between the trees. They glide down to the ground when they see something worth hunting. They zip past the front windows and startle me from my reading. They land on trees in my front yard and turn to watch me through my windows, their dark eyes wide and unblinking. They are unnerving when you make eye contact. One night I was outside with my cat, and he and an owl made a run at the same moth. They both darted back, startled by each other.
This owl would like to know why I’m on my front porch, and what exactly I’m going to do with this photo of him.
I love summer for a million reasons, for the storms and the long evenings and the bright tropical light, and the owls are just one more reason to think this is the best season of all. They come into their own in summer, not just hooting from treetops but sailing down in the clearings and staring us all down with their impassive gaze.
When I lived in Brooklyn I loved just looking out my window at street-life. When I lived in an apartment in Orlando, I would watch people walking out to their cars and guess where at Disney they worked by the costumes they wore. When I’ve stayed in the suburbs I’ve always felt bored and hemmed-in by the quiet streets, the lack of activity. Luckily, in the woods, there are always things to watch. Birds, deer, lizards, bunnies, tortoises, my horses moving amongst all of them—you never know what will show up. It’s lovely to sit and write and glance outside to see what the critters are up to. I like to know that the world outside is a busy place. I like to sit at my desk and feel the world turning outside. I like to know that I’m surrounded by busy, beautiful creatures.
Maybe it makes me feel more industrious at my desk, or maybe I just love distractions.
(I definitely just love distractions.)
I spent most of my life outside until I became a full-time writer, and now I spend most of my time inside. Sweating under a laptop is awful, and part of working outside is that you keep moving. That way you get fewer bug bites and the air cools your sweat. I write with the blinds open on my windows, to let in the light and so I can see what’s going on outside. I need a lot of windows to write. At least that way, I can pretend I’m outside.
Most of the time, I’m writing about what it’s like to be outside in Florida. The humidity, the sweat on your face, the particular summer blue of the sky and the way the air thickens and stills, then rushes and cools, just before a thunderstorm. The way lizards rustle in the palmettos and you never want to be riding in front on a trail ride in summer. The way you can sometimes feel lightning in your chest and realize you should have gone inside a while ago. The flash of white when a flock of ibis flies over, the impossible-to-describe crane song, the infinite life all around you.
I won’t live in the woods forever (like I said, it can be really annoying, what with falling trees and a lot of other issues) but when I leave I will miss my owls. I know they’ll be replaced with other birds I love watching: sandhill cranes, swallowtail kites, hawks and eagles and kestrels. But there’s something so mysterious and otherworldly about those owls. And their voices! Their hoots and their laughter. I just love them. They’re a piece of the Florida I love so much, part of the puzzle I work on every day. This wild, unique place I love writing about.