17

 

There are two nighttime sounds of which I am particularly fond, and they are lovelier and more thrilling than any other sounds: the song of the stone-curlew choir that I mentioned earlier and will later elaborate on, and the mating call of the scops owl. The stone curlews do not enter the garden but sing in fields near and far, whereas the scops owls occasionally visit me and sing between the branches of my trees, and both, for those of you unfamiliar with them, are types of birds.

In Israel, the scops owl is known as the common hairy, making some people wonder whether this is a species of person living here, but it is a small and sweet owl, the smallest of all owls in Israel. Unlike the stone curlews who sing in unison, perhaps to reinforce and establish relationships within the flock, the scops owl sings a solitary prayer: a song of love and yearning by a lonely male, intended to attract a mate.

This is a hairy serenade, if you please, but much more romantic than any human crooning could ever be. The besotted man sings under the window of his one and only Juliet, whose name and appearance and home he is familiar with, whereas the hairy owl sings to an unfamiliar beloved, nor does he know where she is or if she can hear him. He releases his song into the darkness, hoping it will reach the right ear, and when the lady owl attached to this ear comes to him and consents, they build a family together.

This hairy bird is not a permanent resident of my garden but a migrating bird who arrives in Israel toward spring and remains there until fall. At the end of February or beginning of March, sometimes as late as the beginning of June, I hear him all of a sudden, and I am happy he has come and realize that another year has passed. Unlike the sophisticated love songs of other birds, the scops owl sings a simple song: an exceptionally long series of short, identical cries, persistent and sad, a kind of kyoot…kyoot…kyoot in which the pauses—each about three seconds long—are as precise as the pauses of a metronome. When you see and hear the violent arguments between other males in nature, their flamboyant mating dance, their gleaming colors, their luxuriant tails, their tremendous horns and roars and skirmishes—this small and solitary bird, who expresses his love and yearning and hope with the simplest of calls, arouses affection in the listener and warms the heart.

Since all this happens under cover of night, most humans do not know who is issuing these cries, and there are some who even find the sound objectionable because it is monotonous and interminable. But I know this owl and I know what he is going through and so I have a certain fondness for his cries. Sometimes, when the owl calls from a nearby tree—usually between the jacaranda branches—I even answer him: I try an ooh…ooh…ooh of my own, with the most precise intervals I am able to muster. In this way I try telling the owl that he is not alone in the world and that I am rooting for him. To my great sorrow, the owl does not always understand that my intentions are good. It is quite possible that he is insulted and thinks I am mimicking him in order to ridicule his lack of success with female owls, or perhaps I am a good mimic and he thinks I am another male owl about to steal his mate. Whatever the case, because of these stupid games of mine the owl goes quiet and quickly switches location.

And not just because I mimic him. Like many other creatures, the scops owl is very sensitive to any looks he is given, and even if I do not make a sound but only lift my eyes to the treetop where he hides—he usually sees me, although I cannot see him—there is always a danger he will go silent and fly off to another tree. His flight, like that of all nocturnal raptors, is noiseless, and on a night of a full moon, or by the light of a streetlamp, the owl suddenly appears for a few seconds.

For a moment silence falls over the garden, encompassing the veil of dark, but the scops owl does not fly very far away. He needs to save his strength for his loved one in case she finally deigns to come. He finds a spot close by, and quickly resumes his cries, a pleasant and alluring sound infused with sweetness, designed for the female owl who hides under cover of night, and it is according to the cries of the male owl that she decides if he is hers, and she is his.

I have never seen a female scops owl as she reaches the male, but I am sure this is a wonderfully happy moment. I imagine her, suddenly appearing with her quiet owl’s flight, hovering for a moment above the garden and landing on a branch by the male owl.

“Here I am.”

Silence. The male owl is beside himself.

“You called so I came.”

Silence. The male owl hops abashedly from one leg to another and then fixes two beady eyes on her.

“Don’t go,” he manages to splutter.

“It’s me, my love, why would I go? I’m here.”

And all this happens in the garden, right above my head.