Hoots of laughter as enthusiasm comes home to roost for wildlife fans;
Or how the neighbourly night owls found they were birds of a feather

(Daily Mail, July 25, 1997, p.3)

* * *

THERE was only one thing on the mind of bird-lover Neil Symmons. To
wit, to woo an owl.

Each evening, he stood in his garden imitating the call of the night
hunters, hoping one would reply.

But, cry as he might, none seemed to give a hoot about him. Then, one
magical evening last year, came the moment he had dreamed of. He gave
out his customary call ... and back came the clear tones of a tawny
owl.

It was the start of the most unusual nocturnal relationship since,
well, the owl and the pussycat.

For a year, 41-year-old Mr Symmons took to his garden each night,
calling to his newfound feathered friend - and getting a heartening
response.

Although he never actually saw the cooperative creature, he kept a log
of their 'conversations.' His ambition of breaking the code of bird
language and gaining some understanding of owl communications was
taking wing.

Until, that is, his wife Kim got chatting to next-door neighbour Wendy
Cornes. 'My husband spends his nights in the garden calling out to
owls,' said Mrs Symmons.

'That's odd,' Mrs Cornes replied.

'So does my Fred.' Then it dawned on them. Their spouses had spent the
past 12 months hooting at each other over the garden fence.

And although the tale seems almost too bird-brained to be true, Mr
Symmonds - a computer programmer who breeds owls - found it was the
only explanation. 'I felt such a twit,' he said last night. 'I checked
my records and realised from the times I had recorded that Fred and I
had been talking to one another. When the penny dropped between Kim
and Wendy, they only stopped laughing long enough to tell us what had
happened.

'The trouble is that owl calls are not that precise and it's easy to
make a mistake. Two male tawnies roost in an oak at the bottom of the
garden, and I thought Fred was one of them.' Each night, he had stood
outside his $250,000 Georgian former rectory in Stokeinteignhead, near
Newton Abbot, South Devon, while his neighbour - a 58-year-old former
company director - replied from his property 50 yards away.

'I'm most flattered,' said Mr Cor-nes. 'I never realised I sounded so
realistic. I love nature, although I know very little about the
countryside - but I couldnt resist hooting at the owls.

'I never dreamed I was fooling my neighbour, who was fooling me.' His
59-year-old wife said: 'Fred was gobsmacked when I told him. He
thought I was joking, but when he realised and they both checked their
logs, they were hysterical. It is hideously embarrassing.

'Kim and I were talking about it and we thought it was a bit odd that
they both had this gift. Then we worked out that it was happening at
the same time, about 11.30pm each night.

'We couldn't believe they'd been so daft. The thing is, Fred's always
tried to talk to animals. It's a gift I suppose - but even we couldn't
believe how successful he'd been.' Despite the mix-up, both men plan
to continue with their owl-wooing, but will now join forces on their
evening call-outs to avoid confusion.

A spokesman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said
last night: 'Owl calls are very hard to imitate well, even though
everyone thinks they're easy.

'I imagine the real owls listening to all this were somewhere between
confused and hysterical.

'The expression "prize twits" does spring to mind.'

(by James Clark)

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