* * *
During the summer of 1978 I broke my left ankle, resulting in six weeks in a plaster cast from knee to toes. (The event was supremely unheroic: I slipped on wet grass while knocking a tennis ball around with a friend’s little daughter – who, incidentally, subsequently grew up to illustrate this book.) As anyone who has tried it will know, although the initial pain wears off in a few days, and you soon learn to get up a reasonable speed over level ground by swinging between the crutches, the inconvenience of trying to follow the simplest domestic routine while wearing a heavy cast is infuriating. I also felt ridiculous in public, with one leg of my oldest pair of jeans hacked into rags that were held together with safety pins around an increasingly grubby cast. Since showering was impossible, and taking a bath ridiculously difficult, a feeling of shamefaced squalor also crept over me as time went by.
The cast made the chore of getting through the Double-Reciprocating Owl Valve to carry Mumble in and out of the flat complicated and time-consuming, and I tended to leave her free indoors as much as I could. One evening during September I went out to the nearby cinema for a couple of hours, leaving Mumble loose to roam the hallway–bathroom–kitchen–living-room circuit. When I got home at about 10.30pm, she was gone.
I lumbered frantically around the flat, calling her and checking every cupboard and corner. To my fury, I found that I had carelessly left a small upper window in the kitchen open a crack too wide. Mumble had never shown any interest in it before, and I had grown complacent. I began to face the fact that my owl was gone, and – worse – that she would have very little chance of surviving for long, out there amid the concrete, the traffic, and the other humans whom she had never learned to avoid. It was miles to the nearest stretch of woodland, and anyway she had never been shown how to locate and catch edible prey. It was not even the mating season, when I could have hoped that she would meet up with a male attracted by her call, and might conceivably learn from him how to hunt. I cursed my careless stupidity, and I realized immediately how miserably I would miss her presence around the flat on otherwise solitary evenings. (It is my character to respond to probable bad news by imagining the very worst that could happen, and then steeling myself to cope with it; that way, anything less than the worst comes as a relief.)
Rather hopelessly, I turned on all the lights and opened all the windows, just in case she was close enough to find her way back in if she wanted to. But she had never before seen the apartment block from the outside, and had no way to orientate herself – how was she to recognize one lighted box among sixty-four identical boxes? I peered out and down and sideways, at the narrow concrete ledges that ran around the block at each floor level, but there was no sign of her. And even if I had spotted her, what could I do? I have no head for heights; I couldn’t have climbed out and along an inches-wide ledge even if I had been fit, let alone with a leg in plaster.
I hung out of the windows, feeling futile, but giving Mumble’s ‘suppertime’ whistle until my lips cramped. When I finally gave up and went wretchedly to bed, I left a chick hanging on a string from the catch of an open window, with a light on behind it. I had the crazy hope that eventually, when that was the only lit window in the blackened building, she might notice it and be attracted inside.
* * *
After a long time I finally slipped into a miserable half-sleep, but at about 2am I came fully awake again: I would not accept this without one more try. I tugged my slit jeans on over the cast, slipped into a moccasin and a blanket jacket, and went around the flat peering and whistling out of the windows. The night was cooler now, and windier. The stacks of lower buildings that surrounded the foundation deck of my block were mostly in darkness, and apart from lone cars on the main road about the only sound I could hear was made by occasional drunks, reeling out of a nightclub-cum-dancehall at street level in a neighbouring block. My attention caught by this, I happened to be looking straight down into the well beside my block when, silhouetted against the faint wash of security lights at ground level, I saw it – a little, black, broad-winged shape, gliding across.
Exhilarated that I seemed to have a chance at last to do something positive, I grabbed a torch, Mumble’s travelling basket and a bagged chick, and hobbled to the lift (I didn’t need the crutches any more, but I still moved like a bad imitation of Long John Silver). Almost as soon as I lurched around the concrete deck to that side of the building and whistled, I heard a croon. I shone the torch upwards, and there she was, on a ledge about 30 feet up the office block next door.
The next solid hour and a half (I swear) was among the most nerve-racking of my life. Grimly, I staggered back and forth around the foot of the building, whistling and waving a dead chick at the night sky. I was constantly worried that any one of a number of scenarios might suddenly develop. I was afraid that Mumble would get bored and fly off into the distance, never to be seen again. I was worried that a neighbour’s bedroom window would fly open, a torch beam would pick me out, and an angry voice would demand to know what that lunatic was doing lurching around at this time of night, waving a dead chicken in the air.
It was always possible that I might have to explain myself to a policeman – I was already trying to ignore some very old-fashioned looks from a night security guard inside the lit window of one of the ground-floor offices. Perhaps my worst fear was that one of the happy drunks leaving the dancehall doors about fifty yards away would decide to come round the corner to relieve himself in the shadows. (I could just imagine the conversation: ‘Wotcher doin’, mate? Tryin’ to catch an owl, eh? ’Ere, Steve – Steve! Bloke ’ere wiv one leg, tryin’ to catch ’isself an owl … Let’s ’elp ’im, shall we?’)
Mumble moved about regularly, from ledge to wall to ledge, almost always within sight, never within reach. She spent a long time looking down from her perches and talking to me quietly, especially from the pierced concrete-block wall around a boiler room; only 10 feet tall, it was tantalizingly climbable – for a man with two functioning legs. I had to turn off the torch to search for the flash of her white breast against the dark backgrounds, and sometimes when she was out of sight bits of windblown litter glimpsed from the corner of my eye would raise futile hopes. Once or twice she peered down at me intently, dropped her head between her toes, and seemed about to launch herself towards me – then the rattle of a rolling tin can or the rustle of a discarded sheet of newspaper would distract her, and it was all to do again. I became increasingly tired and confused, alternately cursing this infuriating fowl and, in times when I lost sight of her, rehearsing in my mind a post-Mumble life, and realizing glumly how much I would now hate living here without her.
It must have been at around 3.30am when, stupid with fatigue and disappointment, I sat down on the edge of a concrete planting trough to rest my plastered leg, which was now aching painfully. I had not been able to catch a glimpse of Mumble for some time. At least the drunks had long since dispersed, and the night was silent apart from the wind. I put the basket down beside me, slipped the slimy chick into my pocket, and pulled out a smoke and my lighter. As I bent my head to rasp the wheel of the Zippo, I heard a clicking sound. It was Mumble’s claws, on an iron railing beside me.
She stood a yard from my hands, bobbing her head, peering at me and squeaking. I dropped my cheroot, sneaked the chick out of my pocket, and extended it towards her, muttering abject endearments. She hopped on to the top of the basket, craning for her supper; I withdrew it. When she jumped down level with the basket I let her grab one end of the chick, but didn’t let go of it. She chittered with irritation, and pulled – I steered the tug-of-war backwards – and at last the moment came when I could shove the whole situation into the basket, let go of the chick and slam the lid shut.
On the way back up in the lift I was muttering dopey baby-talk, and Mumble was ripping busily into her late supper. Once inside the flat I stumbled around slamming all the windows again before I released her. She behaved as if nothing whatever had happened. Despite
being almost nauseous with fatigue and relief, I sat up for another half-hour watching her fondly, while she finished her gory meal, had a brief but apparently satisfying grooming session, stretched, crapped and went happily to her night cage for a long sleep. I couldn’t be bothered to struggle out of my clothes before I collapsed on my bed.
* * *
In the aftermath of this bad scare, I was forced to recognize what Mumble had quietly brought into my life, and what I would have lost if that night had turned out differently.
She had moved into the flat at a time when I was chewing over the cold cud of some fairly discouraging insights into my own character and the probable future shape of my life. The timing had been purely coincidental, and I had been completely unaware of any gift that she might bring me apart from a pleasant distraction. I was buying a pet bird, that was all; after the Wellington fiasco the idea that it might lead to any real two-way relationship had seemed remote.
Mumble’s arrival had indeed distracted me from glum introspection: I had had to pull myself together and think hard, right now, about practical problems – before she destroyed something valuable, or disappeared into the plumbing, or got injured, or was discovered by the Feds and banished. But she had also offered me her unexpected gestures of trust – perhaps even of affection? What’s more, she was providing me with a nightly cabaret. Funnily enough, I have never enjoyed human slapstick comedy, and I would rather spend an evening filling in my tax return than watching Charlie Chaplin movies. But I was now discovering that it was quite impossible to sustain a mood of self-centred depression while an indignant ball of feathers was doing squeaking pratfalls all over the place. This was food for thought, and for some optimism.
I decided that it was high time I learned more about my new flatmate, so that I could prepare myself for the ways in which she might behave when she had finished growing up. Mixed marriages can work well, but they aren’t straightforward; if Mumble and I were going to have a long-term relationship, it would be a good idea to find out a bit more about her family.
4
The Private Life of the Tawny Owl
TAWNY OWLS ARE found all over the great Eurasian land mass, from mainland Britain (though not in Ireland) right across to Siberia, China and Korea, down to Iran, the Himalayas, north-west India and Burma. The north–south limits of their range in the Western world are roughly from central Norway and Sweden down to the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. They must have arrived in Britain at least 8,000 years ago, before the English Channel finally broke through between the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean and turned us into islanders – tawnies don’t have the aerial endurance for long flights over open water.
Adult tawnies measure up to 14–16 inches (35–40cm) long, though their characteristic squatting posture makes them look misleadingly shorter; they weigh between 13oz and 1lb 12oz (385–800g), and their wingspan varies between about 37 and 41 inches (94–104cm). The female – the hen bird – is usually about 5 per cent longer and up to 25 per cent heavier than the cock. Their coloration provides camouflage in their woodland habitat: barred and mottled shades of either brown or (less commonly) grey, and off-white – the plumage tends to be grey on tawnies living in northern regions, and brown in the more temperate zones. Brown tawnies can be of either a ‘rufous’ chestnut, or (like Mumble) of more chocolate shades. All of them are highly vocal at night, particularly from October to January. Their familiar hooting has long led to them being regarded as the ‘generic owl’ of Europe, and a recording used as a radio sound-effect instantly sets the scene as ‘night-time in the countryside’.
The tawny’s concealing woodland habitat makes its numbers harder to count than those of the Barn Owl, but it is certainly Britain’s most numerous owl – indeed, it is our most common bird of prey. Estimates of the Tawny Owl population published over recent decades have varied surprisingly widely, between a low of about 20,000 breeding pairs and a high of 100,000, and one source even put the number of individuals at around 350,000. The honest answer to the question ‘How many Tawny Owls are there in Britain?’ is therefore ‘Nobody knows – but lots.’ Although the numbers have seemed to be in slight decline in both Scotland and south-west England, warming of the climate may now be extending their range a little to the north, and the national conservation agencies do not consider the overall population figures to be ‘of concern’. (In Europe as a whole their numbers have been estimated at anything between 900,000 and 2 million, and are believed to be increasing slightly. This is heartening – and perhaps surprising, given the indiscriminate attitude of hunters in many parts of southern Europe.)
* * *
The introduction in Britain of chemical pesticides and seed-dressings in the 1950s coincided with an apparent collapse in Barn Owl numbers. Despite legal protection and public campaigns to install nesting boxes for them, their population is still estimated at only about 4,000 breeding pairs. However, while many people simply assume a direct causal link between the use of agricultural chemicals and the decline in Barn Owl numbers through poisoning of their food chain, in fact this remains stubbornly unproven.
The population had actually been dropping steadily for decades before the 1950s because of other aspects of modern farming. Modern metal barns are less hospitable to owls than the old wooden structures (and since – despite their name – about 40 per cent of Barn Owls nest in hollow trees, the much more recent loss of 22 million trees to Dutch elm disease has also had an effect). But food is more urgently important to any carnivore than shelter, and it is the Barn Owl’s hunting terrain that has suffered most.
The ploughing up of rough pastureland and field edges, the grubbing-up of hedgerows, the great decrease in the number of hay fields since the demise of the plough-horse, and the increase in the numbers of sheep (which crop the grass too close to shelter rodents) have all greatly reduced the habitat for the short-tailed voles that form an important part of the Barn Owl’s diet. Since farmers embraced both the combine harvester and modern grain storage there has also been less food for rats and mice lying around in rick-fields and farmyards. The food chain of grain– rodents–owls must have been central to Barn Owl numbers ever since the invention of agriculture. Tellingly, the few studies that have been made of significant numbers of dead owls suggest that chemical poisoning is in fact very rarely the cause of death, while straightforward starvation is far more common. While there are certainly a number of different reasons for variations in owl numbers over time and place, and a complex inter-relationship between these factors, Tawny Owls have clearly shown themselves to be much more adaptable than Barn Owls, and since the 1950s they have survived in far greater numbers.
Ornithologists believe that this success may largely be explained by the fact that tawnies are birds of the woods rather than the fields, are more purely nocturnal, and are more ‘sedentary’ (home-loving) than Barn Owls, and these last two factors are strongly linked. If you live in thick, dark woodland and hunt almost entirely by night, then however good your eyes and ears are you also need to build up an intimate knowledge of your hunting territory. Owls’ eyes are wonderfully developed, but they are not a super-sense: they are superior to ours only in degree, not in nature. If you are a Tawny Owl, you need to be able to fly between the branches even on nights when it is too dark for you to see anything more than a vague difference between shades of black. You need to be able to find your way to favourite hunting perches close to the areas and the runs used regularly by your whole range of potential prey, and to find your way home with a kill – whether to your safe roosting tree, or to the nest where your owlets are waiting impatiently. If you are going to exploit all of your home patch’s varied possibilities for seasonal shopping, you need to have a reliable bank of topographical and spatial memories of its whole extent.
Once you have acquired all this vital knowledge, by sometimes perilous trial and error, why would you choose to travel? So, once it has mated, a Tawny Owl may spend its whole adult life in an area sometimes measuring
as little as 350 yards each side, and with the same mate. The Barn Owl does not have such a predictable breeding season as the Tawny, and cock birds may spread their favours more widely among several partners. They may maintain a small defended territory around a nest, but to catch their prey Barn Owls have to range widely on the wing over a much larger area of fields. This more opportunistic method of hunting must logically leave them more vulnerable to variations in the number of available prey animals, which can be dramatic, and can occur every few years. With a smaller hunting area that it has taken the trouble to get to know like the back of its foot, and with a permanent partner, the Tawny Owl can adapt to such changes much more successfully.
While British tawnies prefer to live in old broad-leaved or mixed woodland, they have also proved resilient in the face of the felling of forest for replacement with commercial conifer plantations, so long as these are broken up with a reasonable number of clearings and rides. (Conifer forests in continental Europe support large numbers of tawnies.) Many British tawnies have also responded to the spread of urbanization by moving successfully into the suburbs, and even into city centres, where they may nest in nooks and crannies on the ledges of tall buildings.
The Owl Who Liked Sitting on Caesar Page 8