The real gift of an owl's stealth is the example it sets for how to be in the world.
Owls are hard to observe for some of the same reasons we love them. With their inconspicuous presence and almost soundless flight, they point to the value of not standing out in the world but fitting into it. |
 | | Julie Benbassat |
|
I love birds, all birds. But owls? They're unique in the bird world: night hunters with eerie cries and extraordinary sensory superpowers that allow them to pinpoint their prey in pitch dark. |
I had my first close encounter with an owl many years ago, when I mounted an owl box on the old silver maple tree behind our house, just yards from the bay window in our kitchen. One spring, an eastern screech owl took up residence in the box, roosting in the day, with just its strange, enigmatic little head facing out of the hole, and then vanishing at night to hunt. I never saw or heard it come and go, but in the morning I'd see signs of its success, the wing of a robin or the tail of a blue jay hanging out of the hole, then yanked all the way in by one hungry little owl. |
When I considered writing about owls, they made my head whir with questions. What makes an owl an owl? How did owls get to be the way they are, so different from other birds? Why did they cross the boundary into night? How can they fly so silently? They have long symbolized wisdom, but are they smart? I wanted to explore these questions and find out: What do we really know about owls? |
Quite a lot, it turns out. We've been studying them for a long time. But only lately have there been the advances necessary to solve some of the mysteries that have been around for centuries — among them the riddle of an owl's silent flight, one of the great wonders of the animal world. As I write in a guest essay this week, owls have wings and feathers so soft and beautifully designed that their flight is virtually silent — so they seem to appear out of nowhere and vanish again. It's one of the main reasons these birds have enthralled us for tens of thousands of years and loom large in the human imagination, including my own. |
| READ JENNIFER'S FULL ESSAY HERE | | |
Forward this newsletter to friends to share ideas and perspectives that will help inform their lives. They can sign up here. Do you have feedback? Email us at opiniontoday@nytimes.com. |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment