Night Owl

As the day slowly turned to night I watched the sun drift down to the horizon in the distance through my camera lens. Photography was a new passion of mine and my specific interest was taking pictures of birds. I never realized the amount of unique ones in my area but after I got my camera I started to notice them a lot more. There were birds of all colours and sizes and I had taken pictures of so many so far, but something I’d never seen before was an owl, something I hope would change tonight. After researching owls and where to find them in my area for several nights I felt confident that I could spot one and hopefully get a decent picture before it got too dark, but the sun was going down faster now and I was beginning to worry about losing the light for a picture.

The place I found to have had recorded owl sightings in the past was a densely wooded area, about an hour from where I lived, not a park or anything notable, just a large forest. When I got here I thought maybe if I just waited on the outskirts of the forest long enough I might see an owl by chance, but as time went by I grew impatient so I slowly crept into the woods, trying not to make much noise and pausing often to look through my lens. But now I was a 40 minute walk into my hunt and it felt like tonight wasn’t going to be my night, I pulled out my phone from my jacket pocket and saw the time 8:27 PM, “Shit.” I muttered, I wouldn’t be back to the car until it was dark now, plus I still had to drive all the way home. The disappointment of the night finally hit me and put me in a bad mood, I felt like I wasted my whole night, I was so sure I would’ve seen even one owl, even if it was far off in the distance. Staring towards the final sliver of sun through the trees I looked through my camera one last time scanning the forest for any sign of activity, using the long lens I had equipped I zoomed in and out focusing closely on the limbs of the trees. As I concentrated my focus further and further with the lens I swear I thought I saw something on the end of a tree branch, which from the distance I was at honestly could’ve been mistaken for a squirrel or any ordinary type of bird, but as my desperation reached its peak I told myself it COULD be what I’ve spent this whole ordeal trying to find. Looking at the same spot without my camera I estimated it would take only a few minutes to reach slowly and quietly, hoping for the best possible outcome I decided it was worth the extra time it would take, I had already come so far.

After several steps I would look through the lens again and again to try get a more focused look on the specific tree branch, I did this three or four times before I was about 100 feet away from the tree in question, almost able to clearly see without the camera anymore, but once more I looked through the lens just to get a better view and as I brought the shot into focus I finally saw what I had been looking for, for so long. It was incredible, my first time seeing such a magnificent and mysterious creature in person not just through other people’s pictures. It was a barn owl, I knew this for a fact after doing all the research recently, the body of the bird was a light brown and white with a round face and black eyes, perched on the edge of the branch high up in the tree completely still except for it’s head slowly scanning the area. I was so amazed I had yet to even take a picture of it, but just as I was about to it lifted off from the branch and flew deeper into the woods. “NO!” I tried to stifle a scream, instinctively trying to not scare it away even further.

Without thinking I chased after it, not too fast and not too abruptly, I couldn’t let it disappear forever without at least one picture. The ground was flat for a few hundred feet, but in the distance, even in the growing darkness, I could see a small hill that was in the direction the owl flew in. I quickened my pace before I reached the hill knowing it would slow me down a bit, I felt confident that I would find the owl at the top, it had to stop again and probably search for a mouse or something small on the ground, it had to, right? My adrenaline, desperation and small knowledge of owls fueled my pursuit, as I climbed the hill I kept telling myself it would be there, I could finally get my prized picture and feel complete with my avian adventure. Reaching the top of the hill I quickly pulled out my camera, scanned the area near and far, focusing in and out faster than I ever had before, when I saw a dark shadow move in the distance among the tree branches. Reflexively I snapped a few pictures as steadily as I could in the direction of the movement, but I knew without looking the pictures wouldn’t be any good so I crept towards it as quietly as I could, with as much speed as the crunching leaves beneath me would allow. The camera was at my eye and back down every few seconds, I was getting obsessive and scared my chance might be gone any second. Slowing down to a quiet stop I took a deep breath in, looked through the long lens and scanned the area feeling as if it was now or never. As the lens slowly focused on the distant wooded area I saw a silhouette, but the silhouette was illuminated by an orange glow, and there was more than one shape and they were bigger than the owl’s, even from this distance I could tell. The owl wasn’t in sight but what I could see now with my camera zoomed was a massive bonfire, surrounded by a small group of people, they were far enough away that I had to use the camera to see clearly, but not too far that I couldn’t see without. Through the camera I tried to figure out what these people were doing as this wasn’t a normal camping area or even used often by the public, and from what I could see at this distance it looked like they were just standing there around the fire, not doing anything. I quickly counted 14 people and thought it was strange that so many people would just be standing still, until one figure furthest away walked towards the fire and upon approaching the fire they seemed to put something in it because suddenly the flames grew twice the height and illuminated their surroundings even more. The flames went higher and higher until I noticed something else revealed by the fire - an enormous outline of something that looked like a statue, a statue of an owl… I didn’t stop looking through the camera, I focused on the statue for as long as I could before the light from the fire slowly died down again and then I looked back at the people around the fire, who were now all on the ground, it looked like they were bowing with their hands in front of them. Being so far away I questioned everything I was seeing, telling myself that maybe it was just the fire and the shadows playing tricks on me, but then I heard in the distance, loudly and clearly, “Hail, Moloch! Hail, Moloch! Hail, Moloch!”