A Hoot Verified

I heard the big owl while I walked from the village parking lot to the boat ramp. 

“Did you hear the owl?” I asked one of the men who regularly drops by the beach area early in the morning.  I noticed these men when I resumed walking in the village after knee surgery.  They come from various directions, park near the boat ramp with their windows open, and enjoy chatting with each other.

“Sparky said he heard it,” Denny replied. 

I was being careful not to call the bird a hoot owl.  When I first heard that call years ago, I looked in the bird book for a hoot owl and found there wasn’t one.  I distinctly remember my grandmother telling a tale for us children about a hoot owl.  She made the story come alive by imitating an owl sound.  That must have been a standard southern thing to call those nocturnal birds “hoot owls.”  Another is the habit of calling a dog, not necessarily a young dog, a puppy dog.  Kitty cat is more universal.  Why people from the south slow their speech even more with double-named animals is beyond me.  Nothing brands one as a southerner quicker than using puppy dog in a sentence.  I didn’t want to stigmatize myself with colloquial speech any more than I had to.  The accent is bad enough.  Hoot owl would not cross my lips.

Sparky was walking down the ramp to the floating pier.  He joined the conversation saying, “I heard the hoot owl.  I’ve never seen it flying, but it’s got to be a big bird.”

What a hoot!  Sparky called it a hoot owl!  Maybe that’s what everyone says when they don’t know the exact name of the bird!

The first thing I did when I walked in the house was to get out the marvelous bird book husband John bought me.  I played the clip of the Great Horned Owl, which is what I thought I’d heard this morning.  The rhythm wasn’t the same, nor was the range as low.  I played five or six different calls until I came to the one that matched the village bird.  It was a Barred Owl, a common owl living in New York year round.  I’ll have to remember the name is eminently acceptable, not barred from my speech.