Post by BuckSkin on Jun 3, 2022 7:28:13 GMT
This is something I never knew or had seen before: a great-horned owl puffing its throat to hoot.
Maybe my little buddy could give you a few lessons; that is a genuine Primos "Hoot Flute" Hoot Owl Call and she makes it sound pretty convincing to me.
Saturday_14-March-2020
I hardly ever hear an owl anymore; when I was a kid, I heard dozens every night.
WHOAW WHOOAWLLL Who WHOOOOAWLLLLLRRR
Not that anyone ever wanted to hear an owl; out in the middle of some dark foggy Sulphur Creek night, walking alone through No Headed African American Holler, where the devil chased Uncle 'Lige Burton so hard up the Judd Hill that he turned white as a sheet and died the next night, the flames licking his legs and him screaming so loud that the men sitting up with him fled the house, expecting to see that same devil at every turn, feeling unseen eyes all around and seeing some of them, your skin prickling like a thousand needles, the last thing one wants to hear is a Hoot Owl to stand the hair up on the back of their neck.
No matter that you might be walking home from some hellfire and brimstone tent revival; no reassuring presence is felt when the road drops down in that lonesome holler --- you must walk it by yourself with only the hoot owls for company.
I've walked that holler alone; and, I have been across it a'horseback on a dead-calm horse that don't spook at nothin' --- he'll turn into a nervous wreck once he drops over in that holler, fightin' the bit and trying to climb up in the saddle with you, taking big deep raspy snorting breaths.
He's every bit as scared of hoot owls as you are.
I keep my head layed tight alongside his neck, lest some big tree limb or taut rope or wire rake me out of the saddle; he ain't going to stay around to see if I'm all right; he's gone to the barn as fast as his hooves will carry him.