At a quarter to four in the morning, a small group huddles in front of the North Park Village Nature Center on Chicago’s northwest side. Our guide, naturalist Jerry Garden, questions the young couple walking toward us: “Are you here for the owl prowl?”
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Jerry asks how many of us have ever seen an owl; about half the hands go up. Karla and I keep ours down. She whispers, “I guess the zoo doesn’t count.” A middle-aged man in a green quilted jumpsuit tells how he’s been fascinated by owls ever since a great horned grabbed his fishing lure. But Karla and I don’t aspire to any sighting so dramatic; the mere glimpse of a great horned or screech owl, the two species native to the Chicago area, will satisfy us.
Our group has grown larger within the last ten minutes; we’re almost ready to begin. Jerry reminds us that owls have remarkable vision and hearing, so as soon as we reach our first location we must remain quiet and motionless.
We are patient, we are still, but no luck. Not a screech in sight. It is time to call the big birds. For this, Jerry has brought a tape player and an actual recording of a great horned owl.
But none shows, not even for our well-behaved audience. It is time for plan B: a caravan to another urban forest. Karla and I ride with Jerry and hear about the “dumbest screech owl in the world”–one who flew nearby after Jerry started playing the great horned calls. Obviously something was wrong with his instincts.
Thoreau wrote that the great horned or “hooting” owl emits the “most melancholy sound in nature,” similar to the “dying moans” of someone who “has left hope behind.” It’s even more depressing to hear its call on tape, to hear Jerry finally say, “Sorry, folks. Guess the owls aren’t cooperating tonight.”
