Evening up the Assabet.

June 25.

At evening up the Assabet hear four or five screech owls on different sides of the river, uttering those peculiar low screwing or working, ventriloquial sounds. Probably young birds, some of them, lately taken flight.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 25, 1860

Those peculiar low screwing or working, ventriloquial sounds. See June 2, 1860 ("I soon hear its mournful scream. . . not loud now but, though within twenty or thirty rods, sounding a mile off.”);  August 14, 1854 (“I hear the tremulous squealing scream of a screech owl in the Holden Woods.”); September 23, 1855 ("I hear from my chamber a screech owl about Monroe’s house this bright moonlight night, — a loud, piercing scream, much like the whinny  of a colt”)

The notes of this Owl are uttered in a tremulous, doleful manner, and somewhat resemble the chattering of the teeth of a person under the influence of extreme cold, although much louder. They are heard at a distance of several hundred yards. JJ Audubon

July 25. See A Book of the Seasons,, by Henry Thoreau, June 25

A Book of the Seasons,by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021