Nature Done Wright

    Everything changed with Ace the Screech Owl last night.

  The first sign was around 6:30 p.m., with Ace still in the box, Watching through the screech-cam, my wife and I could see Ace aggressively grooming himself.

  Moments before I had arrived, my wife heard Ace making a tremolo sound — the sort of sound that experienced birders associate with screech owls.

  The descending whinny of a sound was the first that either of us had heard Ace make inside the box.

  About 7 p.m., Ace perched in the hole, and then flew about 20 minutes later (earlier than usual these days).

  But instead of flying to a nearby branch about the same 8-foot height as the owl box, Ace flew to a branch a good 25 feet up.

  I went outside and watched Ace for five minutes but heard not a sound from him among the steady car traffic of a busy nearby road.

  After Ace flew away, I walked down to the bridge over the brook and scanned the trees for Ace’s silhouette in the steel-gray gloaming, but no owl.

  As I was about to give up, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. It was Ace, as silent as a bat, returning to the nesting box.

  I rushed inside the house to see what Ace was up to inside the box. My wife was already watching the screech-cam monitor as Ace started scratching the floor of the box almost maniacally.

  He was making weird little noises before vocalizing a strange drumming-like noise that built in volume.

  At one point, he looked straight up, as if he had heard something. It looked like he was looking straight at the camera. (Note: Ace’s eyes aren’t different colors; the infrared light is just throwing the tint of one eye off.)

   He then perched in the hold of the box and made that drumming noise again.

  Click below to listen to Ace drum (14 seconds, Real Media). Download Ace’s drumming

  (For an extended recording, including scratching and other owl sounds, click link at bottom.)

  Through the screech-cam, we could only see Ace’s tail and wing tips behind him. But his whole body shook more and more as his call got louder.

  When he flew again, I went outside to look for his silhouette. As I rounded the back of the house, something told me to stop.

  I looked up to see an owl maybe 15 feet above me on a branch by the brook. I could not tell if it was Ace or a different owl.

  I stood in the dark moist March air as a light rain fell and the owl sat motionless. By Ace’s box, I thought I detected another owl in silent flight.

   The owl above me soon disappeared in the same direction, into the darkness of the woods.

   Last night, my wife and I checked the owl box every 15 minutes or so but did not see Ace return.

  My wife said she heard the drumming again at 4:30 a.m.

  Has an owl courtship begun?

  Ace was back in his box as usual this morning. If we hadn’t been there to see it — and hear it — because of the screech-cam, we’d never had known what had happened.

  The truth is that all sorts of amazing but commonplace events take place in nature all the time. We humans are often too busy to notice.

   That’s one of the beauties of the owl-cam. It focuses one’s attention on a small nocturnal bird that most people are vaguely aware of at best, and makes one realize (once again) what a source of constant amazement the natural world can be if we only stop, look and listen.

  That’s something to remember on this, the first day of spring.

    For diehard owl fans: extended owl sounds.WMA