Tryst With An Elusive Owl

​I have a particular fondness for owls. We have had good sighting of them invariably in all our forays into the wild . But one particular species of owls, the Great Horned Owl or Indian Eagle Owl has evaded us in all our peregrinations in the wild.

Last year we visited the Nanmangalam Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Chennai, which is reputed to have resident Indian Eagle Owls. Our hopes surged when we were greeted by a huge poster of the bird at the entrance. It had rained heavily the previous day and we gingerly made our way through the muddy trails with much anticipation. There is a disused quarry in the middle of the forest where the owls are said to reside. We scanned the vast terrain, inch by inch to locate the bird, as it camouflages itself perfectly inside the rocky crevices.  Alas, with little luck. There was a tinge of disappointment but being in the verdant landscape as the sun cast its first rays through the clouds itself was an immersive experience.

We made another attempt to have a glimpse of the bird early this year. This time around, it was an onerous task to get permission from the forest department. Finally we entered the reserve with the precious permission letter in our hands. The sun was already up and the forest was full of bird sounds. With renewed hope that the Indian Eagle Owl would offer us a ‘darshan’, we stationed ourselves on the edge of the quarry. We must have spent over thirty minutes but there was no presence of the bird in that huge quarry. As we made our way back, we were greeted by a host of butterflies fluttering around which buoyed our sagging spirits.

A few weeks ago, we were on a visit to Tirunelveli to have a detailed look at the sculptures and paintings that adorn the temples in the region. On the last day of our visit, we went over to Koonthankulam to meet our old friend Pal Pandian. Pal Pandian is a legendary forest guard who has devoted his life to conservation of birds in the region. I had known him for decades and it was a pleasure to catch up with him again. He gave me a hug and said “Doctor, let us go and have a look at the Indian Eagle Owl”. This was the moment I was waiting for, for years. We made our way to a rocky terrain and there it was, the majestic bird, looking at us from a crevice high up on the hill.

I was transfixed! It was looking straight at me with its lovely big eyes. The Indian Eagle Owl is quite large, with characteristic, prominent ear tufts. The eyes are orange red with black plumage above the eyes which begins in the center of the eyes and stretches up to the ear tufts. Its erect stance was much akin to a yogic posture. Just being in that moment, silently observing the majestic bird was itself an entrancing experience.

With its enormous eyes it can see well in even the faintest of light while its ears can hear the faintest of sounds, even the distant sound of a squeaking mouse. It flies silently and once it has its prey in sight, the owl grabs it with both feet, killing it instantly. Then it swallows the animal in its entirety. After several hours, the owl coughs up the fur and large bones of the victim. The coughed up lumps are called ‘pellets’.

Owls have a long history..

They are supposed to be amongst the oldest of the vertebrate animals in existence as fossils dating back to more than sixty million years have been found.

The earliest depictions of owls appear during the Upper Paleolithic period, within the Aurignacian cultural tradition. These are the people who are recognized as the first modern humans in Europe. The first image of an owl is reported from Chauvet cave in southern France and dates to sometime between 32,000 and 35,000 years ago.

In ancient Greece, Athena was the goddess of wisdom and owls nested in the Acropolis in Athene. Thus they became associated with the goddess, as their scientific name ‘Athene noctua’ indicates. Greek coinage of the time displayed the head of Athena on one side and the likeness of the owl on the other. These Greek coins were known colloquially as ‘owls’, and in his play The Birds, Aristophanes jokes that silver owls are the best kind because they ‘will never leave you; they will dwell in your home and nest in your purse, hatching out small change’. In Greek pottery, owls were often shown on vases depicting worship of Athena. Reportedly, the American president Theodore Roosevelt used to carry an Athenian owl piece with him as a lucky charm.

In ancient Rome the goddess Athena became transformed into the goddess Minerva. When the Roman armies subdued those of the Greeks, they co-opted their guardian deity and borrowed her sacred bird and made it their own. Attached to Minerva however, the owl fared less well because there was already a widespread belief among the Roman populace that owls were evil creatures and symbols of death. In his great book Natural History, Pliny the Elder says of the owl that ‘if he be seen to fly either within cities, or otherwise abroad in any place, it is not for good, but prognosticates some fearful misfortune’.

The Aztecs and Mayans hated and feared owls as symbols of death and destruction.  The ancient Egyptians had a kinder view of owls, believing that they protected the spirits of the dead as they traveled to the netherworld. In medieval Christian folklore the owl was seen as a demonic force: it’s very presence was an ill-omen.

Native American tribes scared their children with stories of owls waiting in the dark to carry them away. There is also an intriguing Indian tale which portrays the Great Horned Owl as having a magic love flute. Once a haughty girl was lured into the forest by its enchanting music, but rejected the Great Horned Owl as a suitor. Later she heard the music again and was unable to resist following it. She was then carried off by the Great Horned Owl. Eventually she learnt to accept that her husband was an owl, because, "Women have to get used to their husbands, no matter who they are”!

The Tartar rulers believed that Genghis Khan was saved by the owl. When his horse was shot in one of the battles he ran for his life and hid under a bush. His enemies came looking for him. At that time an owl came and sat on the tree under which he was hiding. They did not even come near that tree reasoning that the owl would not have sat there if any man had been hiding under the tree. The owl thus earned a permanent place in their emblems, the arms of the Tartar rulers depicting an owl on a golden shield.

In India, Lakshmi the goddess of wealth and prosperity has an owl for a vehicle apart from an elephant. Perhaps she uses the elephant while travelling on land, and  the owl for her forays in the sky! There is some speculation that the owl might actually represent Lakshmi’s consort, Vishnu. But the idea that Lakshmi would ride on her own husband might be a source of discomfort to purists.

If you look closely there is striking and strange similarity between the owl and the icons in worship at Puri Jagannath!

The question is, why do we associate so many things with owls? What is our attraction to this bird? In his landmark work, The Naked Ape, Desmond Morris reports on a survey of favorite animals conducted as part of a children's zoo television program. He concludes that animals favored by humans are those with the most humanoid features. Owls qualify by having rounded outlines, flat faces, facial expressions and vertical postures.

Owls have been woven into the fabric of literature. At times they are depicted as dignified, wise old scholars and at other times as foreboding voyeurs who see all.

Let me outline a few of these depictions in Tamil literature.

A stanza in Natrinai (verse 83) a poetic work of Sangam era vividly describes two lovers meeting under an old tree. The Thalaivi (lady love) asks the owl nesting in the tree to keep quiet and not disturb their private moments in return for which she promises the fowl a share of rat meat fried in ghee!
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எம் ஊர் வாயில் உண்துறைத் தடைஇய
கடவுள் முது மரத்து, உடன் உறை பழகிய,
தேயா வளை வாய், தெண் கண், கூர் உகிர்,
வாய்ப் பறை அசாஅம், வலி முந்து கூகை!
மை ஊன் தெரிந்த நெய் வெண் புழுக்கல்,    
எலி வான் சூட்டொடு, மலியப் பேணுதும்;
எஞ்சாக் கொள்கை எம் காதலர் வரல் நசைஇத்
துஞ்சாது அலமரு பொழுதின்,
அஞ்சு வரக் கடுங் குரல் பயிற்றாதீமே.

Oh owl of great strength, with curved beak,
clear eyes and sharp claws, who lives on a huge, old
tree where god resides, near our town’s pond!
Please do not hoot
When my lover is on his way
with your drum-like, harsh voice that causes fear,
We’ll take good very care of you
And feed you rat meat cooked with clear ghee and white rice
If you do not hoot!

In his epic Tamil novel Koogai, Cho Dharman uses the metaphor of an owl to narrate a tale of oppression that dalits and tribals are subjected to. It is virtually an ethnographic documentation of the lives of the lower-caste people in Chitthiraikudi village and their near exodus to the slums of Kovilpatti. The novel abounds in instances of oppression meted out to the Dalits by the dominant middle caste groups — false cases, forced sexual assaults, insults and thrashings. The owl on the other hand visits at important moments, emerging as a guardian spirit and a magical messiah. It saves children, foretells the future, guards the devotees and in many ways organizes the marginal sections of the society. Dharman explains that the wise bird is a poignant yet powerful metaphor of the plight of Dalits: “flying free and enjoying their rights over the forest" but forced to “live an invisible life". The owl is a symbol for all the oppressed communities, especially Dalits, as it is mostly unsung and underrated, considered to be inauspicious, dark and ugly. It is teased and attacked during the day even by sparrows as it cannot see in the overpowering sunlight and hence prefers invisibility. But it realizes it true strength at night when it is left to itself.

Perumal Murugan, award winning writer, poet and scholar has written an evocative poem on the owl…

இருட்டுக்கும் குரலுண்டு
ஆந்தையின் அலறலது
பொருட்டாக்கிக் கேட்டால் பல
பொருளுணர்த்தும் மொழியாகும்     (இருட்டுக்கும்)
அனுபல்லவி
இருளின் கனத்தை உடைத்து
பெருத்த அமைதி கலைத்துத்
தரும்பயம் போக்கிப் பேசும் (இருட்டுக்கும்)
சரணம்
உருட்டி விழிக்கும் கண்கள்
உருளும் பந்தாய் மிளிரும்
விருட்டென்று வாய்திறந்து
மருட்டி அலறி ஒலிக்கும்
விரித்து மனதைத் திறந்தால்
சிரிக்கும் குழந்தைக் குரல்போல்
இருளை உருக்கி நெஞ்சில்
முருகு பெருக்கி வளர்க்கும் (இருட்டுக்கும்)

​Darkness finds its voice
In the owl
It’s voice has many a meaning
If you listen to it carefully
Piercing the stillness
Of the night
It speaks fearlessly
Its wide eyes
Glow in the night
And when it consumes
The darkness around within itself
It laughs like a child

You can listen to a mellifluous rendering of this poem by TM Krishna:
youtu.be/LFzGKbW72gY

The owl is indeed a very intriguing bird. It is perhaps the only bird that has captured the imagination of human beings across centuries. It has been a symbol of shifting and seemingly antithetical qualities—hulking observer and swift hunter, totem of wisdom and escort of the occult. These disparate qualities have kindled human imagination through time to inspire so many stories, myths, fables and folk tales!

I particularly like this rhyme which appeared in Punch magazine in 1875:
There was an owl lived in an oak,
The more he heard the less he spoke,
The less he spoke the more he heard
Oh, if men were all like that wise bird.

A timely advice in these times!

Incidentally, the English language does have a collective name for owls. A group of them is referred to as a parliament of owls. Whether they acquired this name because they are thought to be wise or because there is a belief that they are wicked is not so clear!
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