tu-whit tu-whoo … the owl incident
I’m still recovering from the gargantuan effort of race directing the Pumpkin Trail Run. Only my family knows the toll it took on my … health? life? When I invest in something - a person, a place, or a thing (my runners, my trail, my race) - I put way too much into it. Too much. It’s not normal. Other people don’t invest this way. Is it obsessive-compulsiveness that causes me to care more than others? Often I feel isolated in my life’s efforts (if only I could find other musicians to play with me as the Titanic is sinking!). My heart is always on the verge of breaking, truth be told.
Things affect me. I over-think and over-feel what others might take in stride … like when the owl attacked me yesterday, out on the trail. I was cruising along picking up orphan flagging from the 9-mile Vine race, enjoying the musty smell of November leaves, sweat trickling down my lower back, when I felt this thump on my head like a log had fallen from a tree. Then, immediately, a double-poke or skewering as my head was pulled back by TALONS! (yes, “large talons,” Napoleon). “AHHHHHH, AHHHHHHHH, AHHHHH!” I screamed - like the proverbial banshee - and whirled around to find this massive thing, this territorial beast, staring down at me from his oak throne (in the middle of the day - aren’t owls nocturnal?!) as if to say, “Get the __uck off my property.” I kept up my absurd howling, figuring this would prevent him from striking again, and picked up a huge stick to hold overhead - like the little dude in The Gods Must Be Crazy - as I hightailed it out of the trail. I kept stopping every few minutes to frantically look up and around, fully expecting another attack.
I made it safely out of the woods - now with blood trickling down the back of my neck - but I am still not recovered. As I said, things affect me. When I told my husband about the owl incident, he simply said, “Awesome. I wish it would come after me.” Over a dozen runners in Chapel Hill have been similarly attacked by this crazed owl, so maybe Dave sees it as some sort of trail-runner’s christening or rite of passage. I don’t feel particulary blessed by this fright, but I do wonder what it means … what I’m supposed to learn.
Pragmatists would argue, “Learn not to run on that trail anymore,” but I wonder if there is something sybollic or spiritual about my encounter with the owl. Is it like the creature in I Heard the Owl Call My Name” foretelling my future?
Is the owl telling me to wake up?
.. to pay attention?
To what?
tu whit to-whoo
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Ask not for whom the Owl whoos?
It sounds like you weren’t badly hurt, for which we are all grateful. But this isn’t the only owl on the lurk. We live in an urban neighborhood interspersed with woods and ravines. I tend to run early in the morning when it is dark. But during about four months a year a couple from down the hill, near the woods, start crossing paths with me. I never see them the other eight months. And as runners will do, I can recognize them by their running form long before I can see a face in the dark. We’ll jog together a bit and chat. The thing is: the owls from the woods chase them out of their own end of the neighborhood those four months; so they climb the big hill to my section and run here. And if this is Seattle and Chapel Hill, there must be others.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if part of your reaction includes words like “shotgun” and “machete”. A lot of normally calm, live-and-let-live runners will turn into Grendel’s Mother when someone tries to take away our run. It’s like they’ve crossed a line: we just won’t LET people take that away from us too easily (as various drivers have found out when they’ve tried to keep me from my 3-foot entitlement of the shoulder).
Fear not about being obsessive-compulsive about things. I suspect it is hard wiring. I suspect the trait is over-represented on the Olympic team.
Good to hear you’re back.
Comment by Eric — 11/12/2006 @ 8:50 pm
The owl attacked you too?!? I was attacked again last Monday. Not sure if it was the same owl as before — it seemed smaller than the previous time. I don’t want to have to avoid those trails, especially once I start running again later this week. Marathon recovery needs soft trails, not hard roads.
Will people think I’m (even more) crazy if I run wearing a cycling helmet? Plenty of people would see me because I have to cross busy MLK Blvd to get to the trails.
Comment by Dave C. — 11/13/2006 @ 8:41 pm
I was out just today around 4pm on a section of the Vine, the largest darn owl I have ever seen flew from the trail to a branch about five feet away, we proceeded to stare each other down, turning around only wrapped me back around beside him, going forward the same thing. I go forward, the owl takes off. I hit the deck, I look up and the owl has moved about 5 more feet up the trail. I move forward again and it does the same thing. After 2 more attempts I take a hard left and bushwhack my way back to the gas line trail and the finally the pumpkin trail. This makes at least 5 owl spottings over the past few months but no attack. Am I lucky or merely biding my time before I become the next victim?
Comment by knocker — 11/13/2006 @ 9:59 pm
Joan,
I’ve read this post twice, and I keep trying to figure out it the owl actually thinks he can carry you off, or whether his belief is that he can remove your head. Also, I wonder if your haircut contributes - whether your hair bounces and it is perceived as the muscles of prey. I don’t know, but have a suspicion that talking to a park ranger or someone who knows owl behavior might make a suggestion about how we can go into their habitat without impinging on their lives, and without our runs being disrupted.
Comment by Scooter — 11/14/2006 @ 9:03 am
Scooter, Joan is petite enough that an owl might think it could carry her off. No-one would call me petite, yet the owl (or an owl) has attacked me on two separate occasions on the same trails. On the second occasion my hair was definitely too short to bounce. Plus I was wearing a blue sweatband in the mistaken belief that this would help the owl realize that I am not a squirrel, rabbit or mouse. I’d falsely credited the blue headband with protecting me since the previous attack.
Knocker, I had seen owls on numerous occasions in the 7+ years that I’ve been running on these trails. I’d seen them sitting in trees (once I’d even seen two sitting together on a branch) and several times have had them glide by overhead. Yet until recently I’d never felt the least bit threatened by them. I wonder if someone attacked the owls, causing the change in behavior.
Comment by Dave C. — 11/14/2006 @ 5:20 pm
I have heard about this owl, and I stayed up late thinking about it in bed the other night.
I have been running for about 15 years now, and until this past year, I have never had any problems with the fauna in any particular area. Recently, deer and fox have kept me off of some of my favorite trails up here in DC, and it makes me feel weak.
Deer are not usually aggressive, but they have become a little too comfortable over the past few months. I cannot run through any trails in DC without coming up on a herd of deer at least once. I have yet to be attacked, but multiple people in the area have been hospitalized recently.
The foxes are a different story altogether, and really giving me a hard time. I have seen three in the past few runs. That is crazy.
So I am running on the roads for the most part. That makes me mad. Am I weak for wanting to stay away from these wild beast at 6am on my morning run? I don’t feel like fighting an animal that early. I just want to enjoy my run!
Maybe these animal attacks are a direct result of all the new developments going up around DC and Chapel Hill. The animals don’t have anywhere else to go, and they are beginning to protect their territory as a last resort.
Take a bird’s eye view of the greater DC area. The only haven for a deer, fox, owl or likewise to exist is in Rock Creek Park… Right where we run.
Do city planners not consider this when building these developments?
Comment by JOCKO — 11/17/2006 @ 12:56 pm
Hi Joan, A similar incident happened to a friend here in Vancouvers Stanley Park. He got some trail rash trying to evade it. This was a short time before Christmas. I was invited to their house for Xmas dinner, and tried to find an appropriate card for the occaison. I came across one that shows an owl attacking someone with a target on their head, and the caption says “Happy Owlidays”
Comment by George (Canada) — 11/24/2006 @ 7:37 pm