Screech Owls moved into a nest box in our yard back in March. The previous fall, we installed the box in a shady spot under a large silver maple tree, about 10 feet away from the back door to our garage. The box was positioned at an angle that would allow the owls to warm themselves in the sun and allow us to watch them from our kitchen window.
You can imagine the glee at our house when we saw our first owl in the box. For the first few weeks, we saw one owl sticking its head out of the hole to bask in the sun. Then, one day, we saw two owls at once. We had a pair! Like us, their favorite hobby seemed to be birdwatching, although our motivations were clearly different. The owls could see our birdfeeders from their box, and they would watch birds coming and going. If a bird got close to the owl box, the owls would open their eyes wide and stare as they leaned out of the box and looked ready to pounce.
In late April, we had our first indication that they were nesting. I was pruning a hazelnut shrub in our yard, and as I peered through the branches, I saw a screech owl looking back at me. I backed away slowly and observed him from a distance.
He was roosting near the nest box, which meant the female was likely incubating eggs. The next day he chose to roost in the top of a nearby pear tree, which put him at the same level as the nest about 10 yards away. He occasionally roosted in different trees but spent most of his time in this pear tree.
By this point, our whole family, including our Japanese exchange student, became invested in the owl family. When my kids came into the kitchen in the morning, they would look out the window to check on the owls.
We tried to minimize our presence in the backyard. The owls helped us embrace the "no mow May" strategy, as we worried that even a fairly quiet electric mower would negatively impact the owls. Mercy insisted that owls who choose to live in an urban backyard could tolerate her hanging laundry. She was right. Both owls watched her the whole time but did not seem alarmed.
I decided to see how they would react to me, so I grabbed a hoe in our garage and walked past the owls on my way to the garden. I passed by about 6 feet away. The female shrunk back in the box and watched me, but the male did not even look at me when I walked by his pear tree.
I heard a soft, cooing trill when I got to the garden and started weeding. I couldn't place it at first. Then I realized the owls were calling to each other. It was such a soft, endearing sound. Unlike their typical nighttime trilling, this version could only be heard for a few feet. It was clearly a more intimate form of communication. I paused and let the sound sink in. Even though these owls were tiny and their sounds subtle, they changed the entire feeling of our yard.
The soft trills were easy to miss amidst the other bird calls. Chickadees were nesting in the box in the same pear tree the male owl preferred for roosting. They did not appreciate having an owl above their nest box, and they constantly scolded him. At first, their alarm calls attracted a flock of other birds, but after a few days, it was just the chickadees. Eventually, they gave up and focused on catching caterpillars to feed their nestlings
The male screech owl did not appear to be phased by the other birds' alarm calls. He just roosted there and slept most of the day. Perched on the top of the tree next to the trunk in dense foliage, he was well camouflaged. His feathers ruffled in the wind just like the leaves. He changed shape every time the wind blew as rustling leaves and feathers blended together. It was hard to separate the owl from the tree.
In mid-May, I noticed small brown feathers under the nest box. That prompted me to pay attention to house sparrows at our feeder. While we normally had 20 house sparrows, I could only see five at that point. The owls had really thinned them out.
On May 26, we saw our first screech owl nestling peering out of the box. He was curious, tentative, and awkward. As a child of the 1970s, I immediately thought he looked like a Muppet. I watched as he observed the birds just like his parents. After a few minutes, he started slowly blinking, then he closed his eyes and promptly fell backward into the box.
Three growing owls require a lot of food, and to provide for her offspring, the female started hunting during the day. Once, I saw her return to the nest with a small mammal. I was lucky to get a few pictures, and when I looked at the images, I realized the small mammal was a short-tailed shrew. I did not know we had short-tailed shrews in our yard! That added a new layer of mystery and intrigue. Short-tailed shrews are a rare example of a venomous mammal. They have a very high metabolism. In fact, if we had the same metabolism as a shrew, we would need to eat around 195 pounds of food per day. Their hearts beat up to 1,300 times per minute, and they make 12 body movements per second. They are high-strung little killers, and they use echolocation to navigate in the dark.
On June 1, the screech owls fledged, and for one glorious day, all five owls were perched in the pear tree.
The fledglings had distinct personalities. If I stepped outside, one of the fledglings would go into full alert, assuming an upright posture with eyes closed and ear tufts erect. Another fledgling 6 inches away remained fast asleep. One unusual behavior I observed was a young owl eating a pear leaf. Maybe he was exploring a vegetarian diet? It was hard to blame him after eating toxic, musky shrews. Judging by the expression on his face, though, I would guess he will remain a carnivore.
The owls were gone the next day. In a strange coincidence, this was the same day our son Noah left to spend a year in Japan to finish his bachelor's degree. It was hard to see him go and even harder to fully articulate my feelings. I told him I loved him and hugged him as we made breakfast. Noah is reserved around us. We tend to use coded language that often centers on our cat Tomoko. She stands in for us. "Tomoko is going to miss you" is a common phrase. We have developed a refined ability to interpret subtle cues from each other. Our love is complicated, fleeting, and our own. It comes and goes and is offered up in little fits and starts.
When Noah was ready to leave for the airport in Chicago, he gave me a real hug—the kind where you hold each other tight for a long time. I felt the physical and emotional distance between us come to zero. We both softened. Beyond our brave faces, our souls were trying to connect under the veil. These subtle efforts to connect are all we have and all we need.
I raised Noah and Ben under the influence of a past that was more damaging than I realized. I did not understand myself or the extent to which my family was "unusual." I was unaware of the dysfunction that gets passed down through generations. Fortunately, I carried both the limitations of my upbringing and the resilience to overcome them.
For most of Noah's life, I was an intense, determined, and somewhat misguided parent. I was disconnected from myself. I possessed a strong drive to be productive, stemming from my upbringing in a lower-class, blue-collar family where work was everything.
My paternal grandparents lived through the Great Depression in Elyria, OH, and were very frugal. My grandfather and dad were both mechanics. My maternal grandparents were Old Order Amish farmers. My parents and their siblings were very handy. In physical terms, they could do what needed to be done in most instances, including building a house, tending a garden, fixing a car and anything else that broke. The focus was on doing things more than being present. Emotional connection and outward expressions of care were not their forte.
This conditioning is what led me to decide to become an organic vegetable farmer —you know, like you do. I embarked on this endeavor as Noah and his younger brother Ben were very young. To cut back on the cost of daycare, I ran the farm and watched the kids part-time. Combining both jobs was challenging. Their childhood, like mine, was idyllic in some ways and austere in others.
I came to see this dynamic more clearly in my mid-40s, and I am trying to course correct, but conditioning runs deep. I am watching and waiting for openings, ways to give and be supportive without pushing too hard. I resort to loving at every turn, hoping that by modeling a growth mindset, I can help Noah navigate life and realize his potential. I worried that Noah harbored resentment about our lifestyle, but I think that hug was his way of telling me he still loved me.
We are entering a new phase of our relationship. Noah flew to Tokyo, took a train to Nagoya, and settled into his new life at Nanzan University.
We communicated via WhatsApp, and a few days later, he told us he had taken a Japanese language placement test and was a level five out of six. As someone who only speaks English and a little bird, I thought this was remarkable. He had learned Japanese through a combination of a few in-person classes and hundreds of self-directed hours of online courses.
I am proud of him and glad he has embarked on a new adventure. The downside is that as young lives take flight, they leave a void behind. Our lives are less animated now. I look out at the empty hole in the nest box and miss those bright yellow eyes and inquisitive owls. I look into Noah's room and am met with quietness, stillness, and emptiness.
I take solace in knowing I did the best I could to foster new life.
Yesterday a child came out to wonder
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star
Then the child moved ten times round the seasons
Skated over ten clear frozen streams
Words like when you're older must appease him
And promises of someday make his dreams
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now
Cartwheels turn to car wheels thru the town
And they tell him take your time it won't be long now
Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down
So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
There'll be new dreams maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
Joni Mitchell, The Circle Game
For more owl essays, see… Screech Owls: A Little Mystery Singing in the Leaves, What an Owl Knows
I love how eloquently you described your and your son’s relationship and a bit of your past and weaving the owls story in with your own.
I could not have said it better when I too did a course correct at age 42. For the last 29 years I have been a living amends to the five children I had a hand in rearing. Kudo’s to those who come to know we are always doing the best we can on a daily basis.
Wonderful post Bill. That is such an amazing experience to have nesting Screech Owls so close to observe. I'm sure your son will have an awesome time in Japan!