I am fortunate to live surrounded by trees. As trees make good homes for birds, I am also surrounded by birds. I do not believe this makes me fortunate, for among the many things birds are is noisy. 

That may sound obvious. After all, it’s a well documented fact that birds sing. It may also sound captious, and if you’re reading this surrounded by cement and brick and the incessant honking noises of cities, you might wish for some trees and birds of your own. Before you pack up the moving truck, consider the following: you will be woken up at five-o’clock every morning. 

I know, I know: you’re ready to turn over a new leaf and become the sort of person who rolls out of bed at dawn with a peppy Huzzah! and begins each day with a cold shower, sun salutations and a list of things you’re grateful for…  Give it a week and see how grateful you are when, on day eight, you’re still woken up at 5AM.

(To those readers who wonder why I often sound grumpy, this is but one among many explanations.)

Most of the birds who provide this unwanted early-morning wake-up call are songbirds: robins and chickadees and juncos and towhees and finches. So many finches! In my opinion songbirds are fine. I know fine’s a boring, flat descriptor that’s best muttered by teenagers angrily rebuffing their parents’ inquiries about how school went today, but given that these little beasts ruin my sleep most nights (mornings), that’s the most upbeat I can be vis-a-vis songbirds. 

Imagine sitting in a room. As mentioned, it’s surrounded by trees. Now place a grandfather clock in that room. Let that grandfather clock tick once loudly every second—tick, tick, tick… It’s peaceful if you let it be. Now add one-hundred more clocks to the room, muck up the timing interval, and set every clock ticking randomly and inconsistently within those parameters. Then set the time on the original clock to start at 5AM and stop some time around dusk. How long until you take that sledgehammer mounted on the wall and smash every clock to bits??

Here’s one very impressive fact about most bird songs: the volume. Your average finch is probably five inches long and can’t weigh more than an ounce, but somehow it sings loud enough to be heard through double-paned vinyl windows from fifty feet away. Ridiculous. 

I don’t believe you can choose your own spirit animal; my understanding is the animal chooses you. The reasons for this are not clearly explained but hey, rules are rules. Also, we’ve done enough damage to the environment that I think it’s fair to leave the power of choice with animals on this one. 

But—but!—if I could choose one, I’d go with an owl. So mysterious and beautiful and quiet and powerful. If you’ve ever been out hiking in a dense forest and been fortunate enough to see an owl fly overhead, you’ll remember one thing distinctly: there was no sound. 

That’s terrifying. And awesome. 

I would not want to have an owl as my spirit animal so I could be terrifying. At the same time, I wouldn’t argue with a little more awesome in my veins. 

During the time I’ve lived surrounded by trees and birds I’ve seen several barred owls, including a couple pairs of young. Barred owls are not native to Washington and have become so prevalent they’re now considered invasive. The federal government intends to kill tens of thousands of them along the West Coast. 

I call the owl who lives near me Owliver. He’s never once responded to that name. Undeterred, I persist.

I don’t know if the owl I call Owliver is the same one I christened Owliver several years ago. You might expect a white guy like me so say this, but the truth is they all kind of look alike.

One eerie thing about barred owls—beyond the whole silent-flying-thing—is how human-like their faces appear. To be clear: Owliver doesn’t look human; instead, his face looks like a Venetian carnival mask you’d wear at Mardi Gras. It’s unnerving. 

I would not kill Owliver or let anyone onto the property who intended to kill him or his Owliver doppelgängers. 

Here’s one of those things that happen when you live among trees and birds. Yesterday I watched Owliver methodically clean out a robin’s nest. Prior to his arrival the nest housed several young birds. It’s now empty. 

True to form, Owliver didn’t make a single sound. He also seemed completely unperturbed as squadron of adult robins dive-bombed him: screaming and cursing and occasionally even thwacking him on the back of the head. 

Owliver has a mottled gray and brown face with black around the nose and eyes and a mustard colored beak. I stood at the base of a cedar and watched as he impassively didn’t-respond to the robins’ attacks. He looked down toward me with that human-like face and blinked so amazingly slowly, as if he had nothing else to do with time but blink. When he closed his eyes they became covered with the same gray and brown colored feathers as the rest of his body, and all I could see was his beak glinting in the late afternoon sun. 

A minute later Owliver flew away with several dead robins in his talons. A crew of adult robins pursued, to no clear end. What are you going to do after your babies are already dead?

I am not overly sentimental, but it was sad. The yard filled with a sticky, heavy quiet. A few minutes later the robins returned. They slunk on tree boughs and scuffed mournfully across the lawn. No one went back to the nest. 

I know those baby robins ended up in the bellies of baby owls, which themselves will eventually end up in some other belly. Still. 

You could insert an Elton John song here, and now that I’ve suggested it you’re probably thinking about Circle of Life. But that’s a little on the nose, so why not Candle in the Wind? Or what the hell—The Bitch is Back would make just about as much sense. 

Late last night I listened as Owliver cooed from somewhere deep in the dark woods: who-who-who-who/who-who-whoooo. Juvenile owls responded, a long, faint but insistent whistling sound that shows they’ve yet to develop the lung capacity of your average songbird. It had been several hours but they were hungry again. 

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(This is The Owliver himself, pulled from a video I shot yesterday)