Bubo, the Great Horned Owl (American Woodland Tales)

by Jean Craighead George

  From her perch Clear Talon saw the flash of the towhee’s wing. She studied it carefully. Clear Talon had not yet hunted, but she knew this was food. She bobbed her head, twisted it almost upside down, and all the while her eyes were focused on the bird beneath the bush. Clear Talon was not ready to make a kill, but her curiosity was enormous. There was much she must learn and there were even feathers to grow before she could strike; but Pipilo did not know this. He only knew that an owl sat above the clearing, and that his mate was in full view of the deadly predator. Moreover she was moving. He was frantic.

  He left his cover and ran over the leaves and sticks with his wings raised, then ran back into the shelter of the briar patch. He called again and wormed his way through the brush to his mate. Reluctantly she left the hatching young and slipped through the tangle after him. At the far end of the patch they stopped. Pipilo scolded. The young female sat still for she was confused. Strong was her call to her young and strong were Pipilo’s fears. She did not know what she should do. Suddenly her overwhelming emotions sparked an injury-feigning behavior, and she fluttered and ran heedlessly in a small circle. Her tense nerves demanded action. Pipilo watched her in great excitement. When she passed he pecked her hard on the head. She stopped her fluttering and sat quietly on the ground. She stared at her mate, waiting for Pipilo to give a signal of action. The distraught towhees sat still under the briars, their bills open as they panted in excitement.

  Bubo saw Clear Talon fly toward the sugarhouse and circle the clearing. It was daylight and the owlet should not be flying. Bubo was a parent; he must teach his young a lesson.

  The old owl looked at young Bubo. He was still sleeping in the woodpile. Bubo snapped his bill and flew off to find Clear Talon. He winged into the clearing, broke his flight with a reverse stroke, and dropped lightly on the chimney of the sugarhouse. Here he could see the entire clearing. Clear Talon had flown from her tree and was sitting on a maple stump in the center of the opening. She had flown down to look more closely at the frightened towhees.

  Bubo hissed and snapped at her, but Clear Talon was too absorbed to heed. The towhees were still standing under the thorn bush motionless and afraid. The little female was stretched out on the ground. She saw the owl and in her fear forgot her nestlings. Clear Talon looked at them and then at a grasshopper that sat on a grass stalk beside her. She leaned down and pecked it. It flexed its legs and jumped away. Her father called again. She looked up at him and was about to hide when there was a rustle in the grass. She turned and snapped her beak. A young fox pup poked his head through the tall weeds and looked at her. He turned his head and studied her with his bright, intelligent eyes. He was soft and awkward like Clear Talon. They recognized the youth in each other. The fox pup stalked her, then romped forward and placed his furry paws on the stump. Clear Talon backed away lifting all her feathers until she was enormous and round and fluffy. Then she jumped down at the fox and jabbed at him with her foot. Young Vulpes wurped at her and ran around her, snapping at the hissing Clear Talon.

  The owlet and the pup played for several minutes before the mother fox called from the field and Bubo swooped down snapping his beak at his cantankerous offspring. The pup saw the mighty Bubo swinging in and ran into the raspberry thicket. He trotted toward home. Jerky movements in a pile of grass to the left attracted his attention and he stared curiously at Pipilo’s wobbly nestlings.

  Clear Talon followed her angry father into the shelter of the forest. He alighted on a tree near young Bubo in the woodpile. Clear Talon perched laboriously on the same tree and listened to her parent hiss and snap and boom his displeasure. Young Bubo awakened and peered intently into the forest. Darkness was descending and the young owl could see the flyways through the trees. They led out to exciting unexplored regions. Young Bubo bobbed his head, pivoted, and flapped his wings.

  Bubo saw that his son was about to fly. He became nervous for he knew that he must go out and hunt for the three of them, and yet he felt he should also stay nearby and guard them from danger. He needed Black Talon, but he knew that she would not be part of this new life. Bubo had no conception of death, only the strong instinct to live and produce progeny. Here were two new owls to replace the one that was gone. Life moved on. The life that Bubo took from the forest was necessary to keep the balance of nature. When nature was balanced, the chain was complete, and each living creature kept it cycling, in life and in death. The two owlets were Bubo and Black Talon’s immortality.

  Bubo resolved his problem by taking the owlets with him while he hunted. He called to them and flew a few trees away. They followed in the spirit of adventure. He flew to another tree, then another until he came to the north edge of the forest. The owlets were tired when they reached him and were content to rest there in an oak. Bubo flew to the hickory in the center of the field and began his hunt. The owlets watched him. Bubo was an expert hunter, and in a few minutes came back with a mouse. He gave it to Clear Talon. Young Bubo screamed. Five minutes later he had another mouse. Within two hours both owlets were stuffed with six mice apiece, and Bubo had also taken six for himself.

  For the next week the owlets followed Bubo as best they could, waiting at the edge of the forest to be fed. They made only short flights. Each night they became more skilled at flying and each night they took longer flights, until eventually they could follow him from their roost to the forest edge without stopping.

  One night Clear Talon joined her father in the hickory tree in the center of the field. Bubo continued his hunt. He understood that she was growing up. She was ready to learn the ways of an owl. And Bubo was ready to teach her. For many nights Clear Talon had studied the flight of the beetles with silent interest. She had seen the earthworms come out of the ground and had even eaten them. She had studied the squirrels as they climbed the trees and the mice running nervously along their grass-lined highways. She had seen the birds go to roost in the trees and the rabbits lope into the meadows to eat the grasses. All this she had learned. She had been observing and watching until at last, this night, she was moved to act on her knowledge. She had flown to her father and was peering into the meadow. The stubby little horns on her head were lifted as she concentrated on the field. She was very hungry. Everything was in readiness for her first hunt.

  A white-footed mouse came out of its grassy cave and looked brightly about. Its nose twitched as it scented the sweet odors of the grasses and wild flowers. Bubo saw it first, but he did not swoop upon it. With great patience he waited. The owlet beside him tensed when she saw the creature. It came cautiously out into the field and turned down its avenue that led to the seeds of the foxtail grass.

  Clear Talon lowered her ear tufts and crouched. The mouse pulled down a stalk of grass and began to nibble. For a moment Clear Talon was a little owl again, curious about the animal as an animal, not as food. Bubo sensed this in Clear Talon. She had changed from a huntress back to a little owlet consumed with curiosity. He was about to take the prey himself, when Clear Talon gave a powerful flap and swooped out into the night. He watched her handle her wings with considerable skill. All the short flights of the past weeks had developed her physically. She plummeted earthward. There was a scuffle in the grass. Clear Talon was hopping and jabbing, hopping and running. She had missed and was chasing the creature through the grass.

  Presently she returned empty-footed to the hickory tree. Bubo wiped his beak on the limb beneath him out of habit. This he always did after a kill and a feast. He had lived the attack with his daughter and had completed the ceremony that followed such a deed, even though it had failed.

  Clear Talon was now desperately hungry. Her failure had whetted her appetite and she screamed at her father for food. He swooped down into the field and came back with a mouse. Clear Talon sidled toward him reaching for the food she craved. Bubo bolted it. The owlet was distressed. She studied the field again, the hunger cramps in her stomach making her alert and angry. Half an hour passed.

  A Norway rat poked
his head up through the grass by the fence post. Clear Talon lowered her ear tufts and was about to plummet after him when her owl sense recognized that he was too close to the fence post. He needed to be more in the open or she would collide with the obstacle. Bubo watched her closely. She was using owl judgment, a sign of maturity. This was the right way to handle the stalk. This is the way he would do it. The rat did not move, and the wait was becoming too long for Clear Talon’s youth. Bubo sensed her impatience, but Clear Talon was the daughter of a great huntress and her instincts were excellent. Despite her eagerness, she waited, and finally the rat moved. He ran down his trail into the field. Now Clear Talon’s weeks of observance and study were tested. She had watched many mice and rats scoot down their little packed avenues as they went out to feed. She observed the direction the rat was taking, judged his speed, and aimed for a spot ahead of him.

  Down from the hickory perch the young owl hurtled. Everything came together in a grand victory - the weeks of flying, the weeks of snagging moving leaves, and the weeks of study of animal life. Clear Talon triumphantly clasped her prey, took her bearings, and winged back to the hunting tree. She devoured the food with supreme satisfaction.

  Bubo felt a fine sense of pleasure, then forgot it. He accepted immediately the fact that Clear Talon could hunt. It was as it should be. He looked across the field to his son who was making assured flights around the trees. He understood that young Bubo was also developing steadily. It would not be long before he would make his first kill. Bubo caught several mice and brought them to him. He did not urge the young male owl to hunt that night. There would come an evening when he, too, would view the life around him out of the eves of a hunter, and his growth into a bird of prey would be complete. There was time, lots of time, and things were going well. The owls flew into the pines at dawn to sleep in the shelter of the dark, thickly needled limbs.

  Bubo fell asleep immediately. The burden of his paternal duties was somewhat lightened. Food was becoming more plentiful and the young owlets were helping to get it. Bubo was approaching his greatest success in life, the independence of his young and their gradual growth into the scheme of the wild.

  CHAPTER NINE

  YOUNG BUBO BECAME a hunter about a week after Clear Talon. Now the old Bubo was free of his strenuous duties as a father-hunter. However, he was still the parent, and the young owls traveled with him during the night, learning many things about the forest and the creatures that lived within it.

  The independence of the young owls was felt by the other members of the forest community. Bubo no longer hunted by day, and their lives became more peaceful. The young owls still ate great quantities, but they fed largely on mice, for they were not skilled enough to catch the bigger game. Rarely did the forest see the family, for they roosted by day near the abandoned meadow, and hunted it by night when the young mice were out of their nests, scurrying through the thistles and yarrow.

  The young mice were slower than their elders. They were not as skilled in hiding, nor did they know as many shelters into which to plunge. The owlets learned to hunt on these unfortunate victims. Each night they became more skilled and better co-ordinated in their strikes. Some nights each owlet took as many as a dozen mice; even so, there were a few more mice each night, so rapidly were they breeding. Some of the young mice, born earlier in the year, were now raising litters of their own, adding to the numbers in the field.

  During August, Bubo would very often take the owlets to the hickory tree in the meadow and leave them. He would fly off and stay away many hours checking his territory and hunting for himself in areas where it took more skill. When their father was not around the owlets felt free. They would hunt seriously and intently for some time, then, because playing was part of growing, they would frisk about the trees, diving, snapping, and pouncing on each other. When Bubo returned they became sober, responsible members of the forest community.

  One night Clear Talon caught six mice within the first hour of the evening hunt. She was comfortable and did not care to hunt further. She killed only for food, and now that she had satisfied that requirement, she set out to explore the ancient forest. She left young Bubo sitting in the hunting tree intently studying the dark avenues pressed into the grasses by the feet of the mice and moles.

  Clear Talon shot across the meadow on a westward current of wind. She floated with it along the edge of the forest. Then she flapped her way through the forest to the westmost edge. The field before her now was strange. She stopped in a maple to survey the new area. The day had been hot, and the earth was slowly stretching and cracking as it was cooled to the night air. The air currents were bumpy and irregular. Clear Talon flew from her tree to ride the bumps for the joy of it. She returned to the maple and studied the strange field again and the forest that lay beyond it to the west.

  Her eyes shifted from the still, dark shape of the forest to a wave in the hay of the field. Some creature was wending its way toward the maple forest. There was humor and interest in the movement, and Clear Talon could not take her eyes away. The hay would bend and dip to the right, then to the left, then they would jitter and shake and bounce back into stillness. There was a long stillness and Clear Talon lifted her gaze to the forest. Below her the hay danced again and the owlet drew herself up into a thin stub and stared down.

  Suddenly the hay shuddered and dipped, and like a rushing wave the movement came right into the maple. Now the animal was at the very edge of the field. Clear Talon pulled her head into the creamy puff of feathers under her chin and watched. Her head flew back and she spread her wings, as out of the grasses leaped a young fox.

  He had grown tremendously since Clear Talon had last seen him, but she recognized her friend. This was the same fox she had met at the sugarhouse, she knew him by the unique movements he made. There was a dance to his stride that the young owl, keen to movement, recognized to be those of young Vulpes. She snapped her beak and Vulpes jumped back into the oats. He waited a moment, then thrust his head out and up. His intelligent eyes peered into her own, and he recognized Clear Talon by her scent. He barked high and icily in the manner of a fox. The little wurp sound of puppyhood was gone. Clear Talon snapped her beak again. Both saw other duties to attend to. Vulpes was on the trail of a rabbit. Clear Talon was studying the far forest. Vulpes leaped through the forest fence and stole silently along the scent. Clear Talon, inspired by the action beneath her, flapped her big silent wings and soared off to the western forest.

  She alighted on the limb of an oak and swayed her head as she looked into the woods. The foliage was heavy, but she could see several flyways that led deep into the forest. Clear Talon chose one and came to a grove of dark pines. She stopped on the pitchy limb of a pine tree and looked around. She felt quite independent so far from her father and brother. She screamed out a boom. Then Clear Talon jumped up and down on the limb, lifted and closed her feathers, playing quietly in her very own forest.

  While she was absorbed in play, the sky to the east became dark and a wind whipped through the trees. The wind blew stronger and stronger. The moon vanished. There was a flash of light and a booming burst of thunder, then the rain fell, sharp and heavy. Clear Talon ran along the pine to the bole of the tree. She pressed close to the trunk and listened to the rain. It poured down, but the dense needles of the pine sheltered her. In the bright flash of lightning the pupils of her eyes contracted to a pinhole, her feathers closed against her with the thunder. After a few minutes of flashing and clapping, Clear Talon began to like the storm. She was curious about it. The water was rushing down the bole of the tree and seeping through the needles onto her. The wetness was pleasing. The owlet opened her feathers and let the water drip against her skin. Then she shook and the dust of her body flew off in little balls of water. Clear Talon had a bath.

  Bubo stood the storm out in the pines by the creek. He had flown there before the rain for he could tell by the pressure of the air and the shift in the wind that a thunderstorm was coming to th
e big forest. This he had learned during his summers in the forest, and he flew to his pine even before he was fully aware of why he was going.

  Young Bubo watched his father leave the hunting field. There was something about his sudden departure that seemed urgent to the young owl. Then he felt the change in the atmosphere. The owlet shook his feathers and flew after his father. Halfway to the pines he stopped in the small limbs of an ash tree. He tried to fathom what was happening. Young Bubo was growing up and he was beginning to act on his own. He shook his head again; the pressure was changing. From the top of the ash he saw dark clouds sweeping hurriedly toward the forest. Then came the bright flash of lightning and the roar of the thunder. Young Bubo dived into the tree limbs and banked as he came upon an old flyway. He pumped heartily toward the pines. Before he reached them, however, the rain poured out of the heavens and pounded upon him. The water made him so heavy he had difficulty keeping aloft. With a final effort he alighted low in the nearest pine. There he shook.

  The storm lasted for almost an hour. Old Bubo dozed through the flash and roars. Young Bubo sat wide-eyed and full of wonder. Presently the roaring thunder grew faint and the rain fell in a light patter. Old Bubo awoke and looked at his drenched, dripping son. He saw that Clear Talon was not in the pines and for a moment he was alarmed. His concern passed quickly, for already Bubo was discarding his feelings of a father. His protection and schooling were nearing their end. He was about to give his offspring to the wilderness, and there were many things they must find out for themselves: storms, hunters, crows, snow, and famine. Bubo could not protect them from many things. If they were to take care of themselves and become mature owls, they must begin soon. Bubo shook the rain from his feathers and went back to sleep.