Four years ago, I built an owl box. I built it for barred owls, Strix varia, inspired by the lovelorn hooting that erupted several nights after a February thaw.
Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all? Perhaps there were only two birds in the dark outside my window, but their commotion evoked a full “parliament” of stout, checker-feathered lovers. I imagined a population boom of owlets, and wondered if there were enough cavity trees nearby to accommodate multiple families.
Hence the owl box. I am no carpenter, and what I made was not store-bought pretty, but it was reasonably straight walled and sound. It met, more or less, Cornell Lab of Orinthology’s recommended dimensions. My husband screwed sticks to the front to create a sturdy perch, and also helped out with the roof, ensuring it was tight enough to keep out rain.
We picked a location in our woods near a vernal stream and easy flying distance to a field well stocked with voles. Then we did the smart thing and hired a man who knows how to climb tall trees and not fall out of them. He hung the box on a thick pine, approximately forty feet off the ground.
We were pleased. We waited. The owls never came.
As far as I can determine, no owl has ever roosted in, on, or even near the box. It may be there are better natural spaces nearby. It may also be that any prospective residents were chased off; I now know that barred owl home ranges can span more than a square mile, so my vision of multiple broods was misguided from the start.
Another factor may be the box’s proximity to our own house. I’ve been misled by an unusually friendly screech owl into thinking that all owls are fairly tolerant of people. For years, “Screech” has lived in a bird box beside my parents’ house. The owl – the family also calls him “The Peek Owl” - will stick his ruddy head out of the box and snooze in the sun while my mother gardens nearby. However, it turns out that screech owls are much more extroverted than their big barred cousins.
Oh well. Even if a barred owl never uses the box, perhaps some day a squirrel or other critter will take up residence. Meanwhile, the box is becoming more owl-like by the day. Its wood has weathered to streaky gray, and blends with the saplings and brush that have grown up along our woods walking trail. I no longer see the box every time I pass by, even when I think to look for it.
The best time of year to find the box is now, when leaves by the trail are all down save for the beeches. I spy it sometimes on my way to other winter woodlot destinations: a rock seep that in the cold turns to a hulking blue glacier, a porcupine’s lair beneath a ledge that’s ornamented with scat and drag-waddle tracks.
I see the owl box. I stare a moment up into its dark eye. I take a few steps, turn back and it has disappeared, folded back into the trees again, or perhaps flown off soundlessly over the snow.