Birds That Go Bump in the Night

I am a bit of a Grinch when it comes to Hallowe’en – I hate the plastic trash that surrounds it and the growth of a food crop purely for decoration. You are more likely to hear me grumbling, ‘there’s nowt wrong with carving an old turnip and apple bobbing’ rather than a jolly ‘trick or treat?’

However this year I have succumbed to writing a Hallowe’en article because as I have researched my book, Bird Weaver, I have learned some spooky stories about birds. From ghosts to goblins, many birds have been associated with the unworldly – and some of them come as a bit of a surprise. Here’s seven birds that might be going bump in the night:

1. Raven – the ultimate Gothic symbol, the raven is Shakespeare’s symbol of foreboding, who remembers “The raven himself is hoarse That Croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements” from Macbeth? Or “Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, by the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore.” from Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven, 1845?
2. Barn Owl – In the Old Testament, owls were used to symbolise desolation, abandonment and mourning. The Romans nailed dead owls to their doors to keep out evil spirits – a tradition that persisted in the UK until the 19^th Century. Wordsworth used barn owls as a bird of doom in his poetry. The barn owl flies silently at dusk on white wings  – it’s call is an unworldly shriek. As they hunt among the headstones of graveyards, could this be the birds behind many a ghost story?
3. Nighjar  – another bird of the dusk, although only visiting Britain in the summer. It’s Latin name, Caprimulgus europaeus reflects the myth that they drink milk from goats’ udders, making the goats go blind. This wasn’t just some old wives tale – classical experts Aristotle and Pliny the Elder both reported this as fact.
4. Curlew – I think of the curlew as a wonderful bird, it’s call synonymous with wild places and big skies. But in Scotland, where it is known as the whaup, local people think that there haunting call is the call of goblins.
5. Manx Shearwater – these little seabirds nest on Hebridean Islands and only come into their burrows at night, guided by the eerie call of their partner on the nest. This fills the skies with ghostly cries, so much so that Norse sailors thought that trolls were living on the Isle of Rhum.
6. Common Gull – there is a belief in Berwickshire that common gulls are the ghost of an old woman who hanged herself.
7. Yellowhammer – this beautiful yellow songbird can often been seen on the top of a post singing away. Most people remember this song as sounding like ‘A little bit of bread and no cheese.’ But this hasn’t always been the case: in nineteenth century Berwickshire, locals thought they were the devil’s messenger as they sang ‘De’il, De’il, De’il take thee.’

These are just some of the local tales and classical references that I have come across as I researched the book. I have expanded on some of these tales in the book – but some of them didn’t make the final edit.