A Report on the Common Barn Owl

By Melinda Faith Wiggs

The Common Barn Owl inhabits almost every place on this Earth. They are the most widespread of all owls, and I think the most beautiful with their heart-shaped faces and deep black eyes. They are mysterious and pale and long-winged, and unique among other owls. Their ears are placed unevenly on their heads, which gives them superior hearing, and they never make that hooting sound you think of when you think of owls. They hiss, and their screech is so frightening that I used to think there were monsters in these woods, but that was back when I was young and new to the forest.

I know so much about barn owls because of Sweetie-pie. Pater rescued her from a fox when she was just a baby, and we nursed her back to health and fed her until she could fend for herself. She got used to us, I guess. She hangs out in our camp and sleeps where we sleep. Barn owls love to nest in man-made enclosures. That’s why they are called “barn” owls.

Classified as birds of prey, they are foragers and carnivores. They hunt all night and sleep all day to digest the voles and shrews they catch. Like white ghosts, they fly low to the ground, as quiet as a night breeze on their fringed wing feathers, and steal animals away from their burrows and families. With those oddly placed ears, they hear the little animals even underground, so it’s no use for them to hide. The owls’ black talons are so strong they kill their prey instantly, snapping their necks as soon as they snatch them up, and eating them head first. Pater says at least the hunted don’t suffer.

Sometimes I hate this about owls, but Pater says they’re predators and that’s just Nature’s way. He says we’re all God’s creatures, all the species on this Earth, only some of us have to be more careful than others and mind our own business, blend in to our surroundings so we don’t call attention to ourselves. That is the balance of things: Some of us are predators, screeching and hunting and tracking down prey, and some of us must live quietly among the trees, just trying to survive.