AT the sound "whooo whooo!" many people tremble. That distinctive low pitch hoot belongs to an owl. With its round head, large eyes and short hooked bill, it looks studious and even mysterious.
It does not help matters that it is a nocturnal bird, which stalks its prey in the dead of the night.
Talk about owls and the echo of superstitions reverberate from all parts of the country.
"It is a rare and evil bird. It only flies at night. Whenever it hoots near a home, somebody in that family dies mysteriously," says Joel Okello in Gulu.
Whether you call that a coincidence or believe otherwise, that feathered nocturnal is both loathed and feared. Across many cultures that ominous hoot portends evil.
Consequently, owls have since been baptized names that rhyme with its cry. Among the Baganda it is called kiwugulu, the Banyoro call it kihuguru while to the Iteso it is etukuri.
People are so afraid of owls that some pluck pages from the Bible or Koran, fold them into a small irizi (pillow) and wear it with a string around the waist or neck, supposedly to wad off such evil. Others sacrifice chicken, ducks and other livestock to appease the gods disturbed by an owl's hoot.
For one week an owl perched on a tree in Jowelia Nagudi's backyard at Bugolobi, a suburb in Kampala.
"It used to perch there and hoot. It would arrive at dusk and I am not sure when it would leave. At first I wanted to get rid of it, but I soon realised that we have a lot of rats in the neighbourhood, which it was probably hunting for food," she says.
Dr. Robert Kityo, a lecturer in the Department of Zoology at Makerere University concurs with Nagudi.
"Being hunters they do not move in groups. They feed on a variety of prey. It depends on where they are located - it may be mice in garbage skips, hares, thorny hedge hogs or lizards," he says.
"When an owl hoots at night, it is either announcing that it is in control of a given territory or it is courting," says Dr. Kityo. "While dogs urinate in an area to mark territory, owls audibly announce their presence."
Armed with a pair of binoculars I stalked owls for three months to try and understand their lifestyle. Some owls look as if they are gold-plated. To the human eye its natural features are both impressive and shocking. The big eyes give one the impression that the bird is permanently surprised.
These eyes are designed to peer through darkness. Each eye scans the same scene or target from a different angle. What's more, the undisputed champion of the night always appears patient, majestic and composed. Often the species in Uganda wear either a brown or gray feathered suit.
Like hawks, some owls can see well enough in sunlight to hunt by day as well as by night. However, the majority of owl species hunt at night. Most night-hunting owls have keen vision in the dark. Some have such sensitive hearing that they rely very little on vision.
Owls are very romantic. I caught them through the lens of my binoculars courting. It is amazing how romance softens a predator. On hearing a distinctive hoot from a partner the male bows. This goes on repeatedly until the tail is raised high up from behind as the beak pokes anything in its way.
This is how the suitor proposes. In response, the female cranes her neck in all directions. She then spreads the wing feathers to display a perfect figure.
Once dating begins, owls like many birds, remain monogamous for the rest of their lives which is anything up to 30 years. They are known to separate nests during cold season and reunite during warmer times. Their strict family planning limits them to hatching two off springs in a life time.
"In Uganda we have about 10 different species of owls," Kityo says. "Be it the African grass owlet, Scopes owl or the White Faced Owl locally they are all called Kiwugulu."
As a survival instinct, like a soldier in combat, in order to remain invisible, an owl narrows its colourful eyes down to slits. This is compounded by compressing the body to be twice smaller than the normal size.
This makes any owl indistinguishable from a tree stump. For emphasis on invisibility, like that childhood fantasy, owls shut their colourful eyes, to be invisible.
Besides that trick, their plumage blends well with a chosen surrounding. It is not very different from tree bark. Other than that, owls boast a pair of decorous wings stretching as wide as 60 centimeters.
The first baby owl to hatch is always three times fatter than its followers.
Cases of cannibalism have been reported among owls. The little ones are known to have voracious appetites. This sends the mother owl away from the nest, presumably because of consistent irritation by the little ones. The male owl follows shortly after. They return strictly to deliver food. The aggressive young ones attack any intruders when they are not squeaking for food.
According to The National Geographic, there are 130 species of owls in the world. They vary in size from large to small ones.
They never build nests but instead occupy the ones abandoned by crows or hawks.
The next time you hear an owl hoot, don't take cover, it is probably the life of a rat that is in danger.
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