It feels like about 40 years have passed since the owls disappeared from the mansion forest. In my childhood, when I heard the cry of an owl called ‘Noritsukehose’ at night, I was told that it meant to wash and starch the laundry because the weather would be fine tomorrow. The owl’s cry served as a messenger, advising on household chores under the night sky.
Several years ago, I came across a fellow owl of the Long-eared Owl species, but since then, I haven’t seen it again.
(This call doesn’t belong to the Long-eared Owl.)
・During my childhood, the neighbor next door kept a wild owl (probably a Ural Owl) as a pet and often fed it Japanese tree frogs. I have fond memories of watching the owl swallow the frogs whole and later regurgitate their skin and bones in a dumpling-like form. It was always fascinating to witness.
・The owl is a raptor that captures frogs and small animals, but there are no Japanese frogs (tonosama gaeru), and we no longer see winter snow mice. The environment in the village has changed over the past half-century, and it has been a long time since the owl at the top of the food chain could no longer inhabit, making it quite lonely.
・It used to be a rural child’s play to catch wild bird chicks and raise them. Releasing them and calling, having them fly back to you was a world of storytelling where you could converse with birds—a delightful childhood pastime. (Although, sadly, some of them did not survive during captivity.）
It seems that raising wild bird chicks is now prohibited, but I believe it is more sinful not to be mindful of the destruction of the ecosystem in the village, which is the habitat of these wild birds. It seems that the leaders of this country, who have never studied the nature of insects, fish, birds, and animals they played (or killed) with during their childhood, remain unaware. What a shame!
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