“An owl hooting or screeching at night could result in the death of a newborn baby, will cause the child to have an unhappy life, or possibly that the baby would become a witch. If the owl was heard screeching during cold weather it signaled that a storm was coming.”

Owls and Superstions | The Aviary at Owls.com

Well, that is cheerful, isn’t it? Our owls have been working overtime this week, and particularly last night when there was a veritable little and large owl orchestra going on. This is known as a Parliament of owls, though our local parliament doesn’t seem very populous.

They live, sometimes, in the copse just outside our garden gate and their sounds are both enchantingly beautiful and haunting, but not, I find, sinister. I say sometimes as sometimes they are not there and so they must be peripatetic in their dwelling as there are plenty of other good places to stay around here.

It sounds like a baby owl and two older owls talking prior to their day. (I once heard someone describe owls talking in the daytime as their “Daymares”!) But it could be, as my husband pointed out, two different types of owl as their calls are different. Being dark of course we can’t see them…

So, we surmise. It seems that they talk in their magical way until around 10 o’clock in the evening and I can only think that that is when they go hunting as around 4 o 5 o’clock in the morning I hear them again. I presume this time they are discussing their day…?

Owls as you can read above get a bit of an unfair rap in my opinion. Their usefulness to the ecology (as we are on this subject this weekend in Glasgow at the conference I have nicknamed Cop-out 26) is the management of small rodents particularly mice which attack crops both in the fields and the barns. This is a little concerning to us as we have a very sweet field mouse who lives in a hole by the garden gate, to say nothing of the mouse who recently tried to take up residence and was politely but firmly removed from the house.

However, they are beautiful birds who play their part in nature’s great symphony but sadly, like us all, under threat from deforestation, pesticides, environmental toxins, light pollution and the disappearance of their natural habitat.

So, whilst I am still unclear as to the type of owl with whom with share our nights I remain in awe of their beauty, their music and their mission.

And no, I don’t find them spooky at all, even at Halloween.

Image credit: Taylor White Collection, Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University Library, Montreal