A  few readers recently wrote to say my talking to birds, and worse, claiming they were talking back to me, was abnormal behavior and constituted a cry for help. They thought I should have my head examined. 

I’d been wondering about my avian conversations myself, so in the spirit of mental transparency, I booked a session with the respected Boston psychiatrist Dr. Malleus Maleficarum.

He was a heavyset man with a twitch that never quit.

“So, you talk to birds,” he said as I sat down. “Not such a big deal.”

“But they talk back to me,” I said. He dimmed his desk lamp.

“As in tweet tweet?”

“First it was Tweets,” I nodded. “Then emails. Now we just talk face to face.”

He realized I wasn’t joking. “That is a big deal,” he muttered, and took a nip from the CamelBak he wore. 

“Sorry, dry mouth. Go on.”

“I know it sounds crazy.” 

“It is crazy,” he corrected. “Last century you would’ve been committed, then thrown out due to budget cuts and left washing windshields at stop lights.” He blinked fast as a lizard and whipped out a pad. “Not to worry. These days pharmacology has a fix for everything.” 

He scrawled out a prescription and shoved it across his desk.

I struggled to read it. “Chlorpromazine hydro – ?”

“Thorazine. One a day and, presto, you’re a new man.” He winked. “Believe me, I know.” He sucked more water. “Now, let’s talk about your Mama.”

I might be crazy but I’m not stupid. I got the hell out of there. 

I decided to consult a mental wizard I’d recently met on the Vineyard. His assessment was much more positive.

“Take it as a compliment. Birds don’t usually bother talking to people. Waste of time, they think. Few humans know a word of the bird languages, so why bother?” He swiveled his head backward and preened a feather back into place.

“I don’t speak Bird either,” I confessed. “So I must be crazy, thinking birds are saying things to me.”

The owl swiveled back to me and blinked his huge yellow eyes. “I’m talking to you, you’re talking to me, and we’re not crazy,” he said matter-of-factly. “And you could speak Owl if you wanted to.”

“Who, me?”

He was delighted. “See? You’re a natural. Only it’s longer, like ‘Whooooo,’ and it doesn’t have a ‘mee’ at the end.” 

I struggled to follow. “Whooooo is part of a language?” 

He nodded. “There are only two words in the Horned Owl lexicon,” he said. “But ‘Whoooo’ has over four hundred meanings, depending on intonation. ‘Good evening, I’m bored, this mouse tastes funny, do you want to hook up, get the hell out of my territory,’ it’s all about
how you hoot it.” 

“What’s the other word?” I couldn’t help asking.

He threw back his head and let out a long series of cat wails, drunken chirps, and squeaky-hinged ‘eeeeeeeks.’ Bone-chilling.

“Yikes, what does that mean?” I gasped. 

“Absolutely nothing,” he grinned. “Middle-of-the-night weirdness we do outside bedroom windows. It just messes with people’s heads.” 

“That’s crazy.”

“No, that’s release. Birds are suffering from PTSD. They need to vent. It’s better than what happened in that Hitchcock movie.”

“The Birds?”

“North by Northwest, where the great tin owl tried to dive-bomb Cary Grant to death.” 

“That was an airplane.”

“That was a bird god. We have lots of them, way up there in the sky. Someday they’ll come down and take us away. Kool-Aid, anyone?”

He was putting me on, I think, but the subtext was fascinating. “So birds are angry, like in the game?”

“Except it’s no game, Pilgrim.” He leaned in. “Birds are in deep doo-doo. They’re talking to you because you might be the only human crazy enough to listen.”

“I do try to listen,” I said. “I know birds have to deal with cats, guys with guns, invisible windows and not enough sunflower seeds in the feeder.”

He shook his head. “It’s gone way past that now.” 

“How way?”

He turned to me. Took a breath, and said – 

“There once was a coal miner who loved bird watching. Every bit of spare time he’d devote to watching them. In the forests, by the streams, in the fields, their songs and colors thrilled him. The other miners called him Bird Brain and laughed at him. ‘Have you ever stopped to look at them?’ he asked. No one had. So next day he brought a bird down into the mine to show it to them. ‘See how alive and bright and beautiful it is? Listen to its song!’ The bird sang loudly. The foreman immediately came over and pulled the miner aside. ‘You were here to work, not talk about birds,’ he shouted. ‘You’re fired!’ He pushed him into the lift.

“‘What about my canary?’ the miner asked. The foreman smirked. ‘I’m keeping it for my wife.’” 

I looked at the owl, who was tossing down a few voles from a bowl on his desk.

“Kind of a labor versus management thing, right?”

“I’m not finished,” the owl said, wiping its beak. “The miner went up to the good air. Everyone else went back to work. After a bit the canary stopped singing, but nobody paid it mind. Then it fell on its back, feet in the air. 

“The foreman glanced over in disgust. ‘Look at that worthless thing,’ he said. ‘He sleeps while we work.’”

Then the owl sat back, waiting for a response. 

“Never worked in a coal mine,” I said.

He shook his head. Then he brightened. “You know what you need? A fly-along.”

“A what?”

“Actors go on ride-alongs. In patrol cars.”

“Oh, yeah, to learn what it’s like to be a cop.”

“Exactly,” the owl said. “You’ll do the same, only it’ll be a fly-along.” 

The owl explained his plan. It was daring. Maybe even crazy.  But better than Thorazine, and if it could prove I wasn’t a lunatic, it was worth it. 

Half an hour later I was buying an ultralight on Craigslist.

An ultralight is what happens if you cross a parasail with a tricycle. There’s a sort of lawn chair to sit in, and behind that a small engine that powers a backward-facing propeller. The propeller’s in a cage so if you lean back for a stretch, you don’t lose your head. At least that’s what the guy down at the flying field joked when he sold me his pride and joy. 

I checked him out. He still had his head, but he was on crutches and the rig had recent welds on its frame. It didn’t auger well, but I bought it anyway.

“Practically flies itself,” he said, and limped away thumbing through newfound cash.

“Nice ride, Pilgrim!” the owl shouted, swooping out of the sky and alighting on the ultralight’s frame. “Say hello to your fellow travelers!” And with that an osprey, an American golden plover, a blue jay, and a coot all landed on the wing, hopping up and down in excitement. “Let’s rock and roll,” the coot squawked. 

I looked at the owl. “I don’t even have a pilot’s license,” I said, sure that would get me off.

“Not required,” the plover laughed. “You’re free as a bird!” He hopped over to a lanyard with a wood handle on its end. “Pull this!”

It was like an old outboard motor cord. I yanked it. To all of our surprises, the engine roared to life and the aircraft started rolling across the tarmac.

“Come, join us!” they all yelled at me. I ran as fast as I could and finally caught up, crashing into the seat.

“Twelve o’clock problem!” the jay shrilled. I looked up and saw we were about to collide with a loading Cape Air twin Cessna. Passengers were scattering in all directions, and the pilot was holding out his hands shouting “Pull up, pull up!”

I pulled back on the yoke and we wobbled into the air, clearing the Cessna by inches. All the birds cheered. The passengers and pilot cheered. We were airborne, soaring like a bird, and heading straight for a wind turbine.

“TWELVE O’CLOCK HIGH!” they all shouted, and I closed my eyes and laughed. It was crazy, I know, but somehow I knew we’d zip between the vanes. 

And we did. 

This article is part of an eight-part series Wes Craven produced for Martha's Vineyard Magazine. Click here to read the entire saga of the filmmaker’s adventures with his avian neighbors.