Hoover the Owl

Hoover wasn’t like the other owls. For one thing he had a proper human name. The lady with the camera had given it to him.

His mother still called him by the series of long and short throaty hoots she had always used, no matter how many times he insisted his name was Hoover. She’d just screech loudly at him whenever he repeated this fact. She didn’t approve of him using human words or a human voice.

Hoover had always known he was different. From the time he hatched, his vocal cords were never quite right. He sounded a bit like a hawk, but nothing like an owl, and he found it much easier to repeat the things he heard the human woman and her husband saying, than to make the noises his parents and sister did.

But the thing that really made him stand out was the fact that, sometimes during the day when the little owlet really ought to be sleeping, he would wake up to find that ears had sprouted on either side of his face.

Owls had ears of course, but they didn’t have the fleshy rounded growths protruding from their heads that humans had. At most they might have a few extra tufts of feathering to protect their ear holes and assist in blending in with the trees. They weren’t there to help with their hearing.

The changes only got odder as Hoover got older. As his baby fluff shed out and his flight feathers began to come in, he noticed other strange occurrences to his body during the day. Sometimes he would wake up to find one of his wings cold and tingling, only to look down and see that in place of his wing a small featherless arm and hand had grown.

It was startling at first and he would scream for his mother who would fuss over him and pick at the offending part until it retreated and returned to its proper form. But after a while these events became so commonplace that he would just tuck the chilly hand under his other wing and go back to sleep. It was always back to the way it should be when he woke up in the evening.

The real problem arose when it started happening to his feet. More than once he was rudely awakened by a hard hit on the forest floor after tumbling out of the tree he had been resting in. He’d glance down to find that his four talon tipped toes had morphed into five stumpy ones with flat nails. Even more disconcerting was the fact that they now all faced the same direction and included a full arch, heel, and ankle to boot. No pun intended, although they were much better adapted for boots in this condition then they were for holding onto tree limbs.

Hoover tried sleeping on lower limbs and even the forest floor, but he soon moved back into the nest after nearly becoming a snack for a sneaky fox one day. This greatly upset his father who felt strongly that the nest was much too crowded with his grown son now also occupying it and that Hoover really needed to find a nice branch like his sister had done.

He’d always been curious about humans, but these peculiar changes he’d been experiencing with increasing frequency just made him even more so. The lady who had given him his name came by almost every morning just as the sun rose to visit him and sometimes she would come by again in the evening with her husband. She’d take pictures of him and tell him what a handsome young owl he was and talk to him like he understood her which, being the unusual owl that he was, he did.

When her attention was drawn away by some other pretty scenery, a flower or an insect, Hoover would dip down in a short flight to catch her attention and alight in the next tree over. He wanted desperately to answer her, but he was worried his half owl voice wouldn’t get the words quite right and that he might scare her away and then his friend would never come to visit him again.

The woman seemed to greatly enjoy taking photos and Hoover really wanted to learn how to as well. He also wanted to drive a big truck like she did. Flying was fun and all, but speeding down the road in a truck would be a mysterious and forbidden experience. Where did the woman go when she was not here? There must be so many interesting things outside of the woods, he thought. So many adventures to go on...if only one was a human.

His parents and sister seemed completely content in the woods, living as owls lived. They occasionally came by to check on what the woman was doing, but they quickly left once they assessed there was no threat. They weren’t interested in conversation or friendship like Hoover was.

One morning shortly after the lady with the camera had driven off and Hoover was heading back to the nest for the day, he heard singing in the woods. Singing wasn’t all that strange, the birds did it all the time, but this singing was different. This was a human song with human words.

He stopped on a branch and looked down at the deer trail below him. A large buck emerged from the brush, trotting down the trail with a perky gait he had never seen any deer perform before, and singing at the top of his lungs a familiar tune. Hoover recognized the melody from something he had heard playing on the woman’s truck radio a few times before.

The owl’s heart fluttered in his chest. This deer could speak the human language too? Hoover had never seen or heard another animal in the forest do such a thing! He had thought himself completely alone in the ability.

The young owl alighted on the path a few yards in front of the deer. The buck startled and immediately ceased his song. He pawed at the ground and lowered his head, brandishing an impressive pair of antlers, and snorting. Hoover readied his wings should the animal charge. They both stood their ground staring at each other for a moment.

Hoover cleared his throat and choked out. “You speak human too?”

The deer took a step back and then glanced around as though looking for others. His tail flagged in warning and his ears flicked searching for sounds. Satisfied that no one was about to ambush him, the buck looked back at the owl and responded in a deep baritone “Yes. What are you doing in my territory?”

Hoover blinked slowly at the buck. “I’ve always lived here. I was born here.”

The deer huffed and approached carefully, sniffing the air around the little owl. “Huh. You were born an owl then?”

“Well yes, what else would I have been born as?”

“Sometimes we are born as humans. I was.”

“But you are a deer.” Hoover replied, confused.

“Only when I want to be.” The buck responded, and then he began to shift right in front of the little owl. A moment later a human man stood in front of Hoover. The man wore a piece of cloth about his waist and a necklace of carved antler.

Hoover screeched and flew up onto a nearby tree branch. The man laughed at him in that same deep voice.

“How did you do that?!” Hoover demanded from the relative safety of his branch. Well, safe so long as his feet didn’t decide to start to change. The sun was high in the sky by now and day time always seemed to be when his body started to do odd things.

The deer man came to stand under the tree and looked up at Hoover. “I could teach you if you like?”

***

Nancy walked down the road bordering the forest. It was early morning and a wet, autumn chill hung in the air. She stopped to snap photos of wild tomatillos in their papery lanterns and the last of the pink and purple morning glories twining their way through the weeds. The light from the rising sun caught on the tops of the trees, their leaves glowing the fiery oranges, reds, and yellows of fall.

The small songbirds dashed about, catching the slow crawling bugs of night for breakfast. Their singing filled the air which Nancy usually found uplifting, but today it couldn’t shake the lingering sadness she still felt. It had been nearly a month since she had last seen Hoover. She’d heard the other owls off in the distance a few times. Even caught a couple shots of them with her long range lens, but Hoover was gone.

She missed his company and his silly antics, flitting from tree to tree to catch her attention. She missed his strange hawk-like squawking. She worried about what had happened to him.

The group of birds she had in frame suddenly took off into the forest. Nancy stepped back, wondering what had startled them. She noticed that all the birds had gone quiet and had disappeared from the roadside. All except for a mockingbird nestled deep in a bush near the wood line, which had taken to shrieking a warning.

Immediately Nancy scanned the trees looking for the telltale bumps along the branches. Searching for the rust colored chest of a native hawk or the brown and white stripes of an owl. The birds only behaved this way when a predator was near. Dare she hope Hoover had returned?

The crunch of gravel behind her caused her to stop squinting into the trees and turn around. The mocking bird in the bush went completely silent.

“Hello!” A thin, young man, dressed in a plain brown t-shirt, blue jeans, and brown hiking boots walked up to her but stopped a respectful distance away. Nancy immediately noticed the camera hung around his neck and an exotic looking earring hanging from one ear. Three small feathers dangled from it, catching slightly in the morning breeze.

“Hello!” Nancy responded.

“I’m enrolled at the community college down the street. I’m studying ornithology, well that is what I want to study. Right now they are just making me take a bunch of biology classes, but my professor said that this was a good place to photograph birds?” The young man blurted out a bit breathlessly. Nancy noticed he had a slight speech impediment, but it wasn’t so bad that he couldn’t be easily understood.

“Oh yes!” Nancy closed the distance between them and reached out a hand. “I’m Nancy, by the way, and this is a great place to see all sorts of birds. If you are really lucky you might even catch an owl or two, although lately they have not been coming in as close to the road as they used to.”

The young man awkwardly took her hand and shook it. He shifted from side to side nervously and then took a step back. Nancy thought perhaps he was a bit socially anxious so she smiled reassuringly at him. She had taught students when she was younger and often ran into ones that were nervous carrying on conversations, especially if they were apprehensive about their speech. Perhaps he just needed a little gentle prodding, she thought.

“What is your name?”

“Hoover. Hoover Buckley.”

“Oh now, that is just too odd. You are not going to believe this, but one of the owls that used to be out here, I named him Hoover!” Nancy chuckled.

“It’s a good name.” The young man smiled back.

“I’m sorry to say, he seems to be gone now. I haven’t seen him in about a month. It’s a shame too. You would have liked him. He really liked posing for photos.”

“Oh I bet he is still around. You know, sometimes they just get the urge to check out new territory.”

“I sure hope that is the case.”

“I bet you will see him again real soon.” Hoover Buckley assured her. “Hey, I’ve got to head back, I have class in an hour, but do you think I could meet you out here again? Your camera looks so cool, mine is pretty cheap. Maybe you could teach me a few things?”

“I’d love to!” Nancy replied.