Artist in SA home has hoot of a time, discovering baby owls in her fireplace
The horror house screech that had a cute ending: Video of baby barn owls found in bedroom fireplace is the cutest thing you’ll see today
READING LEVEL: GREEN
South Australian artist Jenny Schneider got more of a hoot* than a fright when she discovered that the strange, shrieking* noises coming from her bedroom fireplace were being made by five baby barn owls.
“I started to hear noises in the chimney,” Ms Schneider said.
“It was like aliens … like no noise you’ve ever heard before in your life. It was just this horrendous* screech.”
She told her partner that she thought it might be baby birds, and he suggested they might have nested* at the top of the chimney.
“But over time it just got louder and louder and louder … I moved out of the bedroom because the noise coming out of there at night was so loud.”
One day last October Ms Schneider, 57, and some friends decided to look inside the fireplace and video what they found.
The mother owl had apparently been flying down the chimney of the old house, which is being renovated*, to feed her young at night.
“When they squawked* the most was when she was feeding them – you didn’t hear them at all during the day.”
The owlets eventually moved on and the chimney has been covered over, but soon Ms Schneider heard new scratching sounds on the house’s pressed tin ceilings*.
“I thought it might have been possums – and then the screeching started again. They’ve laid more in the roof … so there’s babies in there now and the mother feeds them through the chicken wire.”
Ms Schneider said her daughter had renamed the small town of Alford, on northern Yorke Peninsula were they live two hours out of Adelaide, as “Owlford”.
She recently resumed her hobby of painting and her main subject is – you guessed it – owls.
One of her works adorns* the fireplace where the owlets were found, while she has been selling her other paintings at a makers' market*.
“Don’t get me wrong – they are beautiful birds, but the noise is just horrendous. It’s a love-hate relationship*.”
POLL
GLOSSARY
- hoot: a sound made by owls
- shrieking: making a high-pitched, loud, and sharp cry or noise
- chimney: a tall structure on a building that allows smoke and gases to escape from a fireplace or stove
- horrendous: something that is very unpleasant, terrible, or shocking
- screech: a loud, harsh, and high-pitched sound
- nested: when birds build a place to lay their eggs and raise their young, it is called nesting
- renovated: when something, like a house, is fixed or improved to make it look and function better
- squawked: the loud, sharp sound that birds make
- pressed tin ceilings: ceilings made from tin that have a decorative pattern pressed into them
- adorns: to decorate or add something attractive to make it look better
- makers market: a place where local artists and artisans sell their handmade crafts and products
- love-hate relationship: when someone has both positive and negative feelings towards something or someone
EXTRA READING
Fake poop has owls feeling right at home
Hi-tech masked owl fights money fakers
How to be an at-home artist like Picasso
QUICK QUIZ
- What kind of creatures were making the strange, shrieking noises in Jenny Schneider’s bedroom fireplace?
- Why did Jenny move out of her bedroom for a while?
- How did Jenny and her friends find out what was making the noises in the fireplace?
- Where was the mother owl flying down to feed her young?
- What new sound did Jenny hear after the owlets had moved on from the fireplace?
LISTEN TO THIS STORY
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Love-hate?
"It’s a love hate relationship". Write a story or a description based on, or inspired by, this idea.
Time: allow 25 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English
2. Extension
Can you think of a way that the owls and their babies can be safe in Jenny’s roof but also keep the noise down? Write a description or create a design.
Time: allow 30 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Design and Technologies
VCOP ACTIVITY
The house that shrieks
Having some baby owls as house companions might sound cute, but the noise that follows is anything but. Imagine waking up in the middle of the night to your house shrieking. You would probably think something sinister was happening.
- Write a story about living in a house that started making crazy noises that no one else seems to hear. Play detective and investigate what is making the sounds and when. How does it make you feel? What do you predict it might be? And what do you discover it actually is?
- How will the story end?
- Play around with sentence structure to create pace in your story.
- Use your senses and figurative language to create vivid imagery for your audience.
- Then use your VCOP skills to edit and up-level your story to capture the audience’s attention.