The Call of the Siren

(This post was pre-written because today, hopefully,  I am sitting on a beach with my grandchildren in sunny Florida...unless it is raining today.)

According to my research, the sirens of ancient mythology were not sea life. They were maidens that resided on an island in a flowery meadow and lured mariners to their death by singing songs that caused sailors to swoon in anticipation and thus to sail too close to the rocky shoreline of the island.  According to Walter Copland Perry, "Their song, though irresistibly sweet, was no less sad than sweet, and lapped both body and soul in a fatal lethargy, the forerunner of death and corruption."  


I have my own siren singing such a song in my woods.  It is my little screech owl that resides just on the other side of the ravine.  Every evening as I tuck into bed I hear his thrumming song.  It is gentle, persistent, and most attractive.  I do not know if he is singing a love song of home or calling gently for a mate.  Now that spring weather allows me to open the bedroom window I hear him even more clearly just a few hundred yards away.  He sings for hours and then his lullaby puts me to asleep.


Last night I gave into the addictive call.  I put on sandals, and with torchlight in hand and hubby leaning out over the balcony to witness my demise, headed out across the dewy wet back lawn determined to find which tree hole he calls home.  The sound is so subtle that I had to walk all the way to the dock to triangulate and narrow down the area.  Much like the tapping of a woodpecker, the sound resonates across the space of the evening and confuses and is very difficult to target.

I wandered dangerously close to my "rocky shoreline" and with much luck did not break my neck or twist a second ankle, but it was too dangerous to actually leave the yard and enter the tangled woods with its many downed trees in the black of the night.  (Please excuse the primitive graphics indicating the general area of the sound in the photo above of the ravine between my house and that of my neighbor.)  After several minutes I gave up as I could not see the little fellow.  Tonight he is not singing...I wonder if that is my fault...or perhaps it is the pending rainstorm?