a hoot

[logged by reality mom]

When I pulled out the city Parks and Rec. Guide in December, to look at winter programs, I was disappointed to learn that I had missed signing up for one of the “Owl Prowl” nights in February.  It probably didn’t jump out at me in August because A-Dot’s obsession with owls just started around Christmas. So I put our names down on the waitlist and hoped it might pan out.

As February approached and A-Dot repeatedly renewed a library book about owls, I realized how perfect an Owl Prowl night would be. And somewhere along the way it occurred to me that we didn’t have to hold out for the waitlist; we could do our own. The organized nights involved movies, activities, a night hike to call for owls and a chance to meet the owl at the local zoo. With the exception of the real owl, we could do all that. So I set the date and invited our six-year-old neighbour and her outdoorsy dad.

cute n' crafty

Our two little nature lovers started the evening with a craft project. They each adorned a pine cone with felt bits and googly eyes to make an awfully cute owl.

Next we sat down to two videos we borrowed from the library. Based on a story book, Owl Moon is a really charming story about a young girl and her dad who going owling. How perfect! (Watch it below.) Next was The Wonder Pets Save the Owl — only loosely topical but, gosh darn it, who can resist those Wonder Pets.

all sugared up and ready to hoot

Then we warmed everyone’s bellies with hot chocolate and played some owl calls to familiarize their ears. Then we bundled them up and sent them out to hoot for owls in the wild. As for what happened next, I’ll have to leave it up to Herr Doktor to tell, as EDB and I last saw them pulling out in the minivan …

[Virtual Dad takes the wheel]

The owling began inauspiciously: with a drive-by tour of the fabled closed-but-still-fluorescently-lit-inside institute for mentally challenged children (‘My cycling group starts out from there all the time,’ quoth our neighbour), and then, on pinpointing our first owling destination, with a road-shoulder parking manoeuvre that almost tipped the car on its right side, with all of us still inside. Neighbour, most neighbourly, got out to push the front of the car while I powered into reverse, then manual-shift rocked it back up to the road, all the while Neighbour’s Kid, less than helpfully, shouted ‘Is my dad going to die? We’re all going to die!’

Anyway. Despite this less than promising start, we parked properly and traipsed into a wedge of forest between the road and a wide, frozen-over ravine. I was pleasantly surprised the girls took this seriously, and stayed very quiet after our faux owl calls to listen for replies from the foresty night. Neighbour pointed out depressions in the snow where deer slept (and left little souvenirs). The girls trained their flashlights on these, then on the trees above and resumed spooking each other out. This first stop actually yielded the closest thing to a sighting all night: we decided we had in fact heard an actual reply, though from afar, to one of our calls.

Our next stop was at a proper conservation park, but our calls went unanswered across the more open snowy fields to the dark treelines. The girls had great fun here, though, racing up and down the trails with their flashlights, discovering at one point a giant happy face that some artsy hooligan had stamped into the snow.

i'm smiling because my face froze that way

By the third stop, adot couldn’t stand still with the having-to-pee dance, so we called it and headed home. Again past the eerie closed-but-lit institution, and across an Oxford Street that looked increasingly and reassuringly more like civilization with every eastward kilometre.

We will be back next year, owls. Well, we’ll be back somewhere you’re expected to inhabit, to confuse your courtship habits afresh. Though maybe for next year’s foray, we’ll need to wear some bear spray.