The Barn Owl

The mice had left their black pellets everywhere. The grain stores were contaminated, half of it now inedible. The vermin had appeared in the spring- only a few stragglers at first. I didn't think much of it. I set some traps and assumed our farm cat would be more than capable of keeping them in check. Was I ever wrong.

We found our cat one morning, dead on the lawn. A crude job, even by mouse standards. The traps we had so carefully set around the barn were now sprung on each of his poor paws, fanned out like a starfish. The metal bar pressed hard against the soft pads, forcing his claws to partially protrude. No doubt meant as a mockery of his once fierce display. We buried him on the other side of the farm. Away from the barn... and the mice.

It rained that night. A long, heavy rain. A heavy rain would usually wash away the dirt and debris, leaving the farm shiny and fresh the next day. This time the rain brought a flood of new vermin escaping the wet landscape. Mice from the fields and the forests poured into our barn, carrying all their possessions with them. The existing infestation welcomed them with open little mousy-arms and began setting up temporary housing in the loft. With these newest refuges, I knew they would make a move soon. It was a numbers game – and they had the numbers.

The mice had gotten into our larder and our winter stock was now compromised. If we stayed we risked starvation. My family and I began making preparations to leave. I had an uncle in town who offered to house us for a few weeks while we figured out what to do. As the family packed, I watched the mice from the upstairs window. Several of them had gathered at the edge of the pond. They appeared to be harvesting cattails. The one in charge stood on a rock, gesturing wildly, as teams of mice brought the long stalks back to the barn. I squinted, putting my hands against the glass trying to get a better look at what the mouse on the rock was holding, but mouse plans are far to small for the human eye to see, especially at such distance. Yes, they would be expanding soon. The farmhouse would be their next prize.

That night I sat up late, staring out the window at our barn, wondering how the mice were treating our animals. Surely, our cow Betsy would be spared. I tried to imagine how Betsy would handle her barn brimming with mice. The ground thick with their scurrying little bodies leaving her nearly nowhere to stand, let alone lay down lest she be engulfed in their burgeoning numbers. As I was lost in my reverie, a blur of brown and white flew by my window. I stood up and peered out into the evening sky. What had that been? It flew by again – this time low enough that I could see the moonlight shine off its caramel backside. It was an owl. A barn owl no less! I watched as it circled, slowly, casting its ghostly white face downward, directly at my barn. It did this for a full five minutes before soaring off into the night. I woke my family to tell them the good news. A barn owl had visited, and undoubtedly would come back! I was sure our mouse troubles would soon be over.

If only I knew how right I had been...

It was another three days before the owl returned. My family was getting anxious and losing faith in my conviction. The mice had emboldened, and began parading around the field in organized blocks. The rigid cattail stems were being notched into ladders and carefully stood and stacked against the barn. Just as it seemed they had placed their last stalk, the owl screeched into our yard, flying straight into the barns upper-most open window. The barn shook and the doors rattled. I could hear Betsy's (she was still alive!) panicked moos. The doors flew open and it was only then that I realized how many mice were living in our barn! The vermin spilled from its holds. Like a wave of pestilence and disease, they cascaded out of the barn. Wings spread wide, the barn owl burst out above them, slaying a dozen with a single pass of its claws. It gorged on its victims, filling its sharp maw with both the dead and the living. I watched with excitement, then concern, and finally horror as the barn owl feasted and feasted on hundreds of mice. Hours passed and the slaughter continued with the same intensity as when it began. As one must glance at passing roadkill, I could not look away from the abject horror of this purge. Slowly, I began to acclimatize to the brutality before me, and my eyes focused instead on the size of the owl. It had grown. Not in relation to the encounter three days past, but in the mere hours that it had begun its feeding. Remarkably, it was three times larger – no, at least five times larger than it had been! My interest took on new meaning as I fascinated over this ever growing owl gobbling up my pest problem.

I called for my family, who had hidden away in the den, to come and confirm that my eyes were indeed working. By the time they had finally positioned themselves by the window, there was no mistaking it; the nocturnal predator was now larger than Betsy, and looking no less hungry.

The majority of the mice had been brutally dispatched and what remained scurried about with random abandon. An obvious, and may I say pitiful attempt to confuse their assailant. Slowly now, for the owl had to lumber about, it stalked each and every one until finally – it was done. It gave one loud “HOOT”, spinning its head around, checking for any missed morsels. Satisfied that it had finished its meal, the towering bird crouched its meaty, feathered head so as to fit inside our barn – and then quick as a flash it ate Betsy. One sharp movement and the barn owl had choked her down, as a dessert it would seem! I screamed and rushed my family away from the window. We grabbed what we could carry and pilled into our car heading for town.

It had been two weeks since we left the farm. As promised, my uncle put us up. The owl, whose appetite apparently had not ceased, had left the farm a few days after us, in search of... bigger game. Several townsfolk were snatched up while running evening errands, and it didn't take long before a region-wide curfew was put in place to clear the streets before dusk. Being a nocturnal creature its hunting patterns were, for the most part, predicable. However once its stock of easily caught prey began to evade its prime hunting hours, it adapted to earlier and earlier raids. This led to the necessity of a night watch being created, to alert the town of danger. It was here that I volunteered, as I felt somehow responsible for this owl.

Now, every evening we hide away, in the shadows with the mice. When it soars above, the barn owls hulking body blots out the moon, and the cool night air crackles with its “HOOT HOO”, forever hungry. Forever hunting.