Bubo, the Great Horned Owl (American Woodland Tales)

by Jean Craighead George

  Clear Talon spent the next day in her western woods. At dusk of that evening she flew back to the ancient forest. Her father was sailing along the edge of the field toward the marsh. She alighted in a tree and watched him. He circled the marsh, then swooped low over the grasses. He disappeared into the reeds and came winging out with a young muskrat dangling in his feet. The owlet eyed his game with interest, then she, too, flew low over the marsh.

  Clear Talon did not know about muskrats. She knew nothing of their haunts and habits. She circled and soared for many hours studying the puddles of open water and the big domes of reeds and sticks. She saw nothing. Finally she alighted on the roof of a muskrat house and observed the stillness about her. She turned her big head from side to side and in silence looked at the muddy trails in the water. They reminded her of the trails that the mice and rats made in the grasses of the fields. Presently the water rippled to her left. A brown nose and a pair of ears floated quietly upon the water. The whiskers of the animal twitched and circles formed as they touched the water. The animal was coming toward Clear Talon. She watched silently, but excitedly.

  On down the muddy water trail came the muskrat. Then it saw the silhouette of the owl on its home. It plunged and disappeared from sight. Clear Talon was upset.

  Presently she felt a stir in the dome beneath her. She lifted her ear tufts to their full height and stared at her feet. They were not moving. Still the rustling continued. Then she heard the cry of young animals, not the high-pitched squeak of the newborn, but the vigorous cry of the half-grown animals. Clear Talon hopped all over the dome, looking for the muskrats. She snapped sticks and reeds. The noise in the house stopped promptly.

  At the same time an animal stole out of the reeds and crept along the fallen tree to Clear Talon’s left. Young Vulpes, the red fox, crouched and stared at the owlet. He turned around, moving like a ripple, and slipped back into the reeds of the marsh. He headed for another area where he knew other muskrats to be. He had spent many nights in the marsh learning the habits of the muskrats. For the first time he and the owl were competing for food, and his friendly interest in her was gone. She was a rival.

  Clear Talon sensed the fox’s animosity and she felt the same toward him. She did not like the fox’s stalking the marsh. He would spoil her hunting. With the flapping of her wings, Clear Talon lifted herself into the night and circled low over the marsh. She watched Vulpes pick his way hummock by hummock over the marshy ground. Finally he crouched in a dense clump of grasses and watched the water.

  Vulpes had seen a bullfrog at the edge of the water. He was about to spring when a silent shadow swooped down before him. The fur of his neck parted in the breeze created by the descending body. Then two feathered feet dropped before his gaze and the frog swung up into the air. Vulpes saw his meal ride away. He snapped at it, his mouth watering from hunger. Into the night went the owl and the frog. Vulpes snarled with anger.

  Through September, Clear Talon and young Bubo explored the big forest. They saw the young of the forest grow from prancing baby animals that were careless and easy to catch, into skilled and stealthy members of the forest community. They observed the haunts and habits of all prey until their knowledge was great. And now as the young of the forest became more skilled and less easily found, so the owlets became better hunters. They grew with the other young of the wild, until they were as wise in finding them as their prey were in hiding.

  On a night in early October, Clear Talon flew to the pines along the creek. Her father was sitting on his favorite perch, wide awake. She could see his white throat patch and his big eyes shining like markers in the night light. Bubo was standing tall, like a limb stub. Clear Talon studied him from her perch as if he were a strange owl, although his every move was familiar to her. She knew that he would presently fly from his roost and take the skyway through the tall elms to his hunting tree above the slough. He had done this every evening for the last month. She watched him leave without moving, for she was no longer interested in the same old routes and the same old hunting trees. Clear Talon had other interests: the trees and woodlots beyond the ancient forest. She could not follow her father to the familiar ranges, so strong was her urge to move out to new lands. She saw her father disappear through the elms. She grew more and more nervous. She ran up and down her limb, flapped her wings, and stabbed at the moving needles. It was not easy to give up the familiar habits of her owlet days.

  Then, high above her, Clear Talon heard a new sound in the night. It was a low honking gabble. The wild geese were returning from their breeding grounds in the north following their age-old flyways to their southern feeding areas. The young owl listened and was stirred. She flew out of the pine and climbed above the forest crown. The honking geese sounded high over the ancient forest. Clear Talon climbed toward them. Their voices were beginning to be lost in the distance and in the noises of the high wind currents. Clear Talon was tired of climbing. She spread her wings to glide, and as she did a brisk westward wind picked her up and carried her swiftly over the ancient forest, the abandoned meadow, the marsh, the road, the fields and forest to the west. She turned her head slowly from side to side and watched the land slip past her as she floated. She felt pleasure in her flight. The cool wind slid over her feathers and pressed against her eyes. She sailed on and on. The owlet looked down on the lights of a little city glowing and blinking by the river. She circled it, then flapped slowly westward feeling the air for another wind current that she could ride. She found a cold one several miles beyond the city that carried her slowly earthward. It brought her down to a lake twenty miles from home.

  Clear Talon followed the edge of the lake. As she came down she looked about for a roost and finally came to rest on a broken tamarack.

  A mink who was hunting the bog at the edge of the lake saw the tired young owlet alight in the drooping boughs of the tamarack. She was low over the bog. The mink stood motionless as he contemplated her. She seemed very tired and she smelled of fresh winds and distant forests. He jumped over a log and put it between himself and the owl. Then he looked down into the clear lake water and waited for a crayfish to move. This mink had just fought a young male mink who had crossed his territory. The young of the forest were leaving their homes and moving over the land in search of new ones. Many would not survive this trial. It was another crucial period for the young.

  At dawn a downy woodpecker thrust his head out of his hollow in the tamarack stub and looked around. The sun was low in the eastern sky. He should be about his food gathering. He turned his head to the left and saw Clear Talon sleeping on the broken top. He pulled his head back into his hollow and waited in terror. A great horned owl had come to his tree during the night and he was beside himself with fear. It took him fifteen minutes to gather enough courage to dart from his hollow. Clear Talon opened one eye when she heard him dash to safety.

  Clear Talon had been at the lake only two hours, but already the forest was feeling the impact of her arrival. The mink had denned at the far end of his territory, the downy woodpecker was looking for a new roost. The songbirds that were awakening were chipping in alarm. Clear Talon had come to the forest during the night!

  Bubo had seen his daughter fly out of his life. He was not sad, he was even pleased, for her departure was the final step in his relationship with her. First there had been eggs, then young nestlings, then fledglings, then immatures, and now young adults ready to take up their own lives. Bubo saw that his job was done and was ready for the solitude of the fall. He shook himself, yawned as he watched a feather float away, and took his old flyway to the marsh. As he flew he passed young Bubo sitting in the basswood at the edge of the marsh. His head was bobbing up and down as he studied the land that lay to the south.

  Young Bubo departed the next night. He was carried south and east on a short wind that ended over an open field. Flapping vigorously, young Bubo flew on with the urge of the season.

  The following night old Bubo flew around his territory. I
t was strangely empty, but he had a feeling of great satisfaction as he sensed all was well. Already the leaves were falling and the wind was brisk and cold. The owl felt the coming of winter and was ready for it in body and spirit. The rigors of the breeding season were done, he had raised two handsome owls in the shelter of the old forest. Now he could rest and prepare himself for spring. He flew from the slough out across the marsh, then circled back to the stream forest. He caught a mouse, then winged to the clearing before the sugarhouse. There he took a shrew.

  About midnight he soared off to the eastern border of his territory. He had hardly reached his hunting tree before he saw a young male horned owl come floating across the clearing toward him. The young owl was tired; he had flown many miles since sunset, but Bubo had no compassion for him. He hooted, snapped his beak, and plunged at the intruder. The young owl saw the tiger-owl coming toward him and he wearily pumped his silent wings and flew away. Behind him echoed the boom of Bubo.

  Into the sunlight at the sugarhouse came a young titmouse of the year. No other titmice challenged his arrival. He flew briskly around the territory. He flew east until he was stopped by a titmouse of the forest hill. He flew north until a scolding titmouse who lived there came winging toward him. He flew west almost to the forest of second growth before another male titmouse halted his progress. The new titmouse stopped short of the other bird and sang. They agreed that the new titmouse could come west just this far. Then the new titmouse flew back to the sugarhouse and began to explore more carefully the excellent territory he had fallen heir to. He was a strong young titmouse, clear of voice and keen of sight. That day two more young titmice came to the sugarhouse. They were nest mates, they took up a place in the newly forming society. They respected the new Parus, for he was alert and already knew where to look for food.

  Several days later a downy woodpecker came to the sugarhouse. He made a noisy entrance. A stubborn larva was buried deep in the stub of a limb. The downy woodpecker drilled toward him. In the stillness of the midmorning his hammering caused the titmice to pause in their food finding. The woodpecker had a vigorous rhythm. They listened until all was silent and the grub was won. The titmice scratched at the leaves and made soft noises. The downy saw them and winged to a tree above them. It was an old basswood. He bega n to circle and climb it. He came to a big dead limb and journeyed out on it, pecking and looking. Then he found a fine cavity beneath the limb. He went in. It was an excellent hollow, just his size, dry and snug.

  At sunset he remembered the hollow in the basswood and flew toward it. He stopped short of his destination, however, for old Sitta, the nuthatch, was already in it. The downy woodpecker could see his stiff tail in the doorway. He circled the limb and looked in at Sitta. Sitta pecked and warned him to leave. The young downy found another hollow in one of the maples.

  The next morning the new Parus flew out of his hollow and winged to the big maple at the edge of the clearing. He took his song post and was about to announce the day, when a warning “seeeeeee” issued from his throat. The titmouse was numb with fright, his body was shaking and his heart was pounding. Three trees away stood a young horned owl. It was a giant bird, fiercely marked and formidable looking. The songbirds of the sugarhouse community became silent and still as one by one they saw the owl.

  Bubo, the great horned owl, was also aware of the young owl who perched near the sugarhouse. From his roost in the beech tree he studied the golden head, the black eye ring, and the great talons. Bubo did not chase her away.

  A Biography of Jean Craighead George

  Born in Washington, DC, on July 2, 1919, Jean Craighead George loved nature from an early age. Her parents, aunts, and uncles, all naturalists, encouraged her interest in the world around her, and she has drawn from that passion in her more than one hundred books for children and young adults.

  In the 1940s, after graduating from Pennsylvania State University with degrees in science and literature, George joined the White House Press Corps. She married John Lothar George in 1944 and moved to Michigan, where John was attending graduate school. Her husband shared her love of nature, and they lived for a time in a tent in the forest. They began to write novels together, with Jean providing illustrations. Their first novel, Vulpes, the Red Fox, was published in 1948.

  Following the birth of their first child, the Georges relocated to New York, living first in Poughkeepsie, then in Chappaqua. The family welcomed wild animals into their backyard, to stay for as long as they wished, but the creatures always remained free to return to the wild. Many of these temporary pets became characters in the stories George wrote with her husband.

  After winning the Aurianne Award, the American Library Association’s prize for outstanding nature writing, for Dipper of Copper Creek (1956), George began to write on her own, at first continuing to illustrate the books herself. She won a Newbery Honor for her third novel, My Side of the Mountain (1959), which tells the story of Sam Gribley, a young boy who runs away from home in New York City to live in the Catskill Mountains in Delaware County, New York. The book was adapted into a film by the same name in 1969.

  In 1963, divorced from her husband, George and her three children, Twig, Craig, and Luke, began to travel around the country, visiting parks and preserves to learn about the plants and animals that thrived there. These experiences were the inspiration for many of George’s novels, including what is perhaps her best-known work, Julie of the Wolves (1972).

  In the summer of 1970, George and her youngest son, Luke, visited the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory near Barrow, Alaska, one of the northernmost cities in the world. In preparation for a Reader’s Digest article, George studied the wolves living on the tundra nearby, learning about the animals’ social structures and intricate methods of communicating through sound, sight, posture, and scent. One day, George saw a very young girl crossing the tundra alone. The image remained with her as she began to write Julie of the Wolves, the story of an Inuit girl who escapes her abusive husband and survives in the wild by joining a wolf pack.

  Julie of the Wolves was awarded the Newbery Medal in 1973. The book was a finalist for the National Book Award, and it was selected by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) as one of the ten best American children’s books of the previous two centuries. A film adaptation was released in 1987, and George later wrote two sequels about her Eskimo heroine, Julie (1994) and Julie’s Wolf Pack (1997), and shorter illustrated stories about the wolves, Nutik, the Wolf Pup (2001) and Nutik and Amaroq Play Ball (2001).

  George also wrote sequels to her first award-winning novel, My Side of the Mountain. The Far Side of the Mountain (1990) and Frightful’s Mountain (1999), along with the picture books Frightful’s Daughter (2002) and Frightful’s Daughter Meets the Baron Weasel (2007), relate the further adventures of Sam Gribley and his peregrine falcon, Frightful, as they live off the land in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. George and her daughter, Twig, published their Pocket Guide to the Outdoors (2009), a practical companion volume to the books.

  George has written more than one hundred books in the last five decades, including the Thirteen Moons series (1967–69), comprised of illustrated chapter books about wild animals in their natural habitats through the seasons of the year. Most recently, she has collaborated with illustrator Wendell Minor on more than a dozen picture books for younger readers, including the Outdoor Adventures series.

  In addition to this extensive list of fiction for children and young adults, George published an autobiography, Journey Inward (1982), in which she reflects on her life as a writer, naturalist, and single mother. George still lives and writes in Chappaqua, New York.

  Jean Craighead George (bottom left) in Ontario, Canada, in 1923 with her twin brothers, John and Frank Craighead; mother, Carolyn; and next door playmate. Jean’s brothers were a great source of inspiration, and worked as photographers, naturalists, National Geographic writers, champion wrestlers, and, finally, grizzly bear biologists. Jean also attri
butes her love and appreciation of natural history to her teacher and father, Dr. F. C. Craighead, a forest entomologist and zoologist.

  Jean Craighead George (far right) in the wilderness of Seneca, Maryland, with cousin Ellen Zirpel, brother Frank, Spike the dog, friend Morgan Berthrong, and Trigger the dog, in 1936. They spent just about every school weekend together along the Potomac River, learning about vegetation and wildlife.

  Jean Craighead George with her then-husband, Dr. John L. George, in 1958. The couple lived in a twelve-by-twelve Army tent for four years while John got his PhD and Jean wrote books and illustrated filmstrips.

  Jean Craighead George and Yammer, a screech owl, in 1964. Yammer lived with Jean and her family and made his home in the breaks between books in their bookcase. (Photo courtesy of Harper Portraits.)

  Jean Craighead George in Chappaqua, New York, in 1964, with her pets Tonka, a Newfoundland dog, and Tricket, a Manx cat. Jean learned many things from her domestic pets, including animal language, social structure, and personalities. (Photo courtesy of Ellan Young.)

  Jean Craighead George circa 1970, catching Monarch butterflies to band and release. These bands were used to track the butterflies’ migratory destination, which was still unknown at the time. (Photo courtesy of Ellan Young.)

  Jean Craighead George and a young peregrine falcon named King David in the Catskill Mountains in 1985. Jean was gathering a falcon’s perspective for her book Frightful’s Mountain, a sequel to My Side of the Mountain.