HOO-HOO-HOO-HOO…
“What is that sound? I must know.”
“What sound?”
“That ‘hoo hoo’ sound like someone hyperventilating over the neck of a pop bottle.”
“That’s the cry of the bird that goes ‘hoo-hoo,” jokes Dave. It was two summers ago and we were halfway through an 80-day canoe trip. Dave wasn’t sharing my ornithological curiosity. “Hey, what do you want to have for dinner tonight?”
That mysterious cry from deep in the boreal forest haunted me night after night, but I could never figure out what it was, Dave and I laughed about it—one of those silly trip jokes—but hearing the sound made me uneasy.
The unseen bird reminded me over and over again what a stupid city slicker I really was—a lover of the outdoors, sure, but one who couldn’t tell the difference between a warbler and a woodpecker.
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