It isn't rational, of course, but the interaction is there, all the same, to be heard. Whether roused from slumber or in some way spoken to, a cow lows back to the owls from the field beyond the wood. It is often said that everything connects, and so it seems. Each owl, materialising in its own silent void of the forest, filled the space with what, at times, can almost be said to be an owl chorus. Their strange mid-distance hoots over time were joined by others.
It was soon joined by another, replying in an unusually tremulous way. The change began with a tawny owl, far off to the left, that began to call. It seemed it wouldn't make even one episode.īut then, just before the gothic bell clanked the half hour before 5am, something in the air changed. It turned out to be one of those night's when almost nothing stirred, just the faintest susurrations of wind in trees and the occasional crick of a dark bush cricket, hidden amongst the thick brambles that grew around the taught wire fence where we tied the microphones. Three years ago we made another overnight recording at the edge of a rural wood.
