I have always dreamed of owning a woodlot that was home to a pair of breeding great horned owls. As a hunter being in the woods before dusk and just after dawn, I have heard the territorial hoo hoo hoo. And I have seen them silently blazing a path through the woods deftly avoiding tree limbs.
My first close call with a great horned owl nearly stopped my young heart. As a college student I once lived in an old farmhouse at the outskirts of town where I snuck out into a farmers apple orchard to do some early morning archery hunting for deer. I was equipped with a second hand Golden Eagle compound bow, three razor tipped aluminum arrows, a buck pathfinder knife in a black leather sheath with a silver snap and a wild idea that with these possession I could harvest a mature whitetail deer buck.
I arose before light and bumped my way around the bedroom trying not to wake my drunken sleeping roommate. He would sometimes get so intoxicated that he would black out. He once urinated into the bottom drawer of my dresser which I had foolishly left pulled open. The house dog, a big heavy boned Labrador retriever usually slept in bed with me. She followed me around curiously. I can still hear her nails clicking on the old hardwood floor.
It was a crisp fall day as I stepped out into the dimmly lit dawn and made a hasty beeline for the woodlot. I had to walk about a quarter mile along a back country road before I could get into the corn field that protected the orchard. That walk was sort of nerve racking as I didn’t want anyone seeing me. I devised a plan to jump into the weeds and hide should a car come along.
None did. At last, my heart racing, I ducked into the golden rod after jumping a drainage ditch. Without a flashlight I had to rely on my dialated pupils and the faint shadows of the moonlight. It was about then I became aware that my heart wasn’t racing so much as a result of me hurrying to get into the woods, but in anticipation of what might happen. As I made my way toward the orchard the footing of the cornfield was uneven and my ankles were absorbing the twisting and turning of the soles of my hunting boots. The frosty crunch of the hedgerow, and every once in awhile I’d stumble over a fallen branch or rotting log that was camouflaged by the shadows.
I consciously kept my bow poised to react to an inadvertent mistep or fall which could seriously wound me if my broadheads jarred loose of their mooring in the carrier attached to the bow. This would be a tragic end to the hunt which I had lay dreaming about the night before. Well before hunting hours, half an hour before sunrise I slipped quietly into the orchard. The loudest sound being my beating heart and the slow stalk of toe down first and then heal. It seemed like forever getting to the tree I had scouted out.
My senses were nearly exploding, the smell of ripening apples on the ground, the unfamiliar calls of waking birds, the sunrise just beginning with an orange promise of a blue sky day. I stuck one arm through the opening between the bows string and it’s cammed levers and wedged it on my shoulder. And I climbed. I’d had placed a small length of two by six with the cutouts into the crook of two spreading branches about fifteen feet above the orchard floor. Once settled onto the plank I leaned satisfyingly back onto one of the splits of the main truck. Comfortable enough to remain motionless for a few hours.
I was sweating from the trip in so I unzipped my jacket and shook my sweatshirt forcing cool air against my heated chest. My heartbeat began to slow and I started to relax. The woods was beginning to awaken. It was not long until I began to feel unsettled. Their was someone or something nearby that I could feel but not see. With all the uncertainties behind me and the success of getting situated I couldn’t shake the feeling of company in the area. Was I being watched?
I turned my head slowly to the right and scanned the area at eye level and below. And then I turned left. I found myself looking face to face with a great horned owl perched ominously on the limb beside me no more than 12 inches from my head. His eyes penetrated mine and then he exploded off the branch and left me ducking away from his immense wingspan. I nearly fell from the tree in surprise. I don’t think my heart beat for a full minute. When I recovered, only then could I appreciate the wildness of the bird and how close I had been.
The rest of the morning was rather uneventful, thankfully. Anytime I hear the hoo, hooo, hoo of the great horned I think of our chance meeting and wonder if he was annoyed that I’d discovered his favorite perch or if somehow he too remembers and smiles.
I dont have the buck knife anymore, nor the bow and arrows of that morning. But I have the memory of an encounter of the great kind one glorious fall morning in Penns Woods.
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Originally Posted by Float On
