Shutting up, psyching out screech owl

Bulletin No. 267-A from the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, Ill., has its information on screech owls a tad wrong.

That’s a shame, too, because the bulletin has been around since April 29, 1967, and speaks disparagingly of us Southerners.

A distant relative of the screech owl that tormented me on hot nights in Blount County years ago cranked up recently as Regina and I sat on the front porch at the farm. Aside from the cicadas, the owl’s quavering high-pitch call was the only thing piercing the way-back-in-the-country silence.

So we talked about screech owls and the superstitions about them.

Legends associate them with omens, good and bad. Our family is of the bad omen branch.

Grandma Glenn would tell us the bad things that could happen after a screech owl let out what some people describe as a “spooky horse whinny.”

Bulletin 267-A confirms her beliefs:

“They (screech owls) have been regarded as the companions of sorcerers, witches, ghosts, hobgoblins and Satan himself.”

Indeed, superstitions say the owls’ eerie screeches into the infinity of night predict death, illness or disaster.

“This one’s awfully close, kids,” Grandma would say. That meant something bad might be coming, probably to somebody we knew ... if we didn’t get the owl to hush.

To shut up a screech owl you psyche it out.

Bulletin 267-A foolishly claims Southerners tried to hush a screech owl by getting out of bed and turning over a left shoe. If that didn’t work, a nail or other iron object thrown into the fire would.

That’s insulting.

Grandma Glenn’s sure-fire answer was for us to tie a knot in the corner of a bed sheet.

We did, and the owls eventually stopped screeching.

What more proof is needed?