Deceiving Bird Calls

For as long as I remember I’ve had this avicultural fad; keeping birds in planted aviaries from the day I was a lad. Caging prolific zebra finches to the pretty Whydah bird. Bred Strawberries and Cutthroats even if their name’s absurd. There were a hundred other species that I bred behind the wire, but as the years went by I found I had this new desire, I preferred to watch our native birds flying free upon the wing, with not a barrier between us where in freedom they could sing. I realised that Mother Nature has agendas through this land, with a million jigsaw pieces that we fail to understand, but even with this in-bred terror of the fear of haunting man, there are some of us who try to curb the soul of nature’s plan. We are the meek and humble who abhor the dreaded gun; who prefer to show our mercy so that instinct is undone by so many months of patience as we urge to gain the trust of a Top Knot or a Sparrow as we throw to them a crust. But alas the dull grey townies have their instinct long instilled. They tend to bore the watcher knowing taming them unskilled, so the seeker yearns attention from the wary, wild and rare, using similar calling tactics that he’s learnt with quite a flair. I can easily drag a Currawong from within a forest haunt. Trill Sittella’s from the gum tips flying close enough to taunt, but of course with each experience, a further goal sleeps up ahead, and a year ago became my project while my wife’s asleep in bed. Naturally she thought me crazy spending nights out in our yard, as I tried to lure the Barking Owl, by attracting it off guard, but then one night beneath the moon, I heard a ‘Wuk-wuk’ bark; returning for my imitation from somewhere in the dark. I’ve got to say I felt quite good with this unusual situation; how many of you folk out there have had communication with a Barking Owl - a timid bird, that each night for a year, I mocked its ‘Wuk-wuk’ call that it returned so loud and clear. I taped our calls and played them back to try and find a trend, if there is some kind of language that a Barking Owl does send. I compared my notes discovering my conclusion tends to lurch into another specie call, so I must further my research. I say a Barking Owl it is - but the Eagle Owl has similar traits. Its dialect mutters deeper and so the mystery now creates me for the need to volunteer more hours through the night, to search the trees and find the Owl that’s always out of sight. But my need to search throughout the night came to a crashing end, when a neighbour from two doors away, took the time to spend, an hour with my wife and me, one afternoon for scones and tea, and the conversation drifted to about what interests me. Ornithology meant nothing to her, but she understood the word, then I mentioned I was thrilled about communing with one bird. I cited that an Owl quite rare, through my calling’s now quite tame. “You call Owls!” Our neighbour said - “My husband does the same”.