THE LUMINOUS OWL
It glitters and glisters and gleams.
It lights up the night in its shimmering flight,
A vision of wonder and dreams.
Dr Karl Shuker – from my Star Steeds and Other Dreams poetry blog
Anomalous phenomena come into and go out of fashion very much like fashions themselves, and the concept of luminous birds, especially owls, is no exception. Throughout ancient and medieval history, it was very much a subject for discussion among writers and scholars. Moreover, there seems to have been a traditional, longstanding belief in many rural areas across the world but notably in Britain, continental Europe, North America, and Australia, that owls glow. Indeed, 'glimmer gowk' is included in Charles L. Hett's engrossing avian dictionary A Glossary of Popular, Local and Old-Fashioned Names of British Birds (1899) amongst the popular monikers for any British owl.
Nevertheless, during the past century this intriguing subject has slipped into virtual obscurity. Indeed, notwithstanding the countless eyewitness reports and vast body of documentation relating to luminous birds in the past, certain modern-day skeptics breezily dismiss it as a mere myth, a credulous fragment of countryside folklore confined and duly consigned to bygone pre-scientific times, and thence long since discounted. As will now be shown, however, via the selection of cases documented in my two-part survey here on ShukerNature, the reality is very different. Something much more tangible than fanciful folklore appears to be involved here – but what?
One of the first coverages of this intriguing phenomenon that I ever read was an article by Count Louis de Sibour entitled 'The Existence of Luminous Birds', originally published by the periodical Knowledge (New Series) in September 1913, and subsequently collated by William R. Corliss in Incredible Life: A Handbook of Biological Mysteries (1981), one of his many invaluable compendia of scientific accounts documenting wildlife anomalies and curiosities. In his article, de Sibour commented:
Few students delve deeply in natural history without encountering the topic of luminous birds, and the pros and cons of the subject are developed by the reader with a frequency that tests the credulity of any superficial investigator.
Indisputably, it has exerted a great fascination for any scientist willing enough to examine and take seriously the myriad mysteries of unnatural history; but before continuing with my own investigation of it here, I need to present a few definitions in order to prevent the all-too-common confusion of certain relevant scientific terms:
Incandescence is the emission of visible light from a substance heated to a high temperature. In contrast, luminescence is the emission of visible light (and sometimes other types of electromagnetic radiation too) from a substance as a result of any non-thermal energy-releasing process. If the luminescence ceases as soon as the energy source is removed, this is termed fluorescence; but if the luminescence persists (after-glow), this is termed phosphorescence and is the type of luminescence seemingly exhibited by luminous aka glowing birds. Also requiring a definition here is bioluminescence – namely, the biochemical creation and emission of light by certain types of living organism (known from such forms as fireflies, glow-worms, and various deepsea fishes, plus some plants, fungi, and bacteria – but not birds…officially).
As noted by de Sibour in his article, luminous birds have a very considerable documented history, dating back at least as far as the time of the celebrated Roman author/naturalist Pliny the Elder (23/24 AD-79 AD). He mentioned one unnamed example briefly in Volume 3, Book 10 of his encyclopaedic 10-volume, 37-book magnum opus Historia Mundi Naturalis (Natural History of the World), stating: "In the Hercynian Forest, in Germany, we hear of a singular kind of bird, the feathers of which shine at night like fire". The Hercynian Forest was the huge ancient tract of dense woodland that in Roman times stretched across western Central Europe from northeastern France to the Carpathian Mountains but which exists today only in the form of fragmented, relict expanses. It was said to be home to many wonders, including a bona fide unicorn supposedly seen by none other than Julius Caesar (click here to read my ShukerNature article dealing with it).
Pliny's account of this mysterious luminous bird (and much else too from his above-cited multi-volume tome) was regurgitated two centuries later by Latin geographer/compiler Clarius Solinus, in Chapter 20 of his own major work, De Mirabilibus Mundi (On the Wonders of the World – also subsequently republished in a greatly revised edition entitled Polyhistor). Moving forward a millennium, Pliny's report of a luminous tyoe of bird was again recycled in an extensive work. This time it was De Animalibus, written by the 13th-Century German monk and scholar Albertus Magnus (1208-1280), and finally published in 1478 following the invention of the printing press.
Moreover, the year 1555 saw the publication of the very first treatise devoted totally to luminescence in animals. Entitled De Lunariis, and written by Swiss naturalist/physician Conrad Gesner (1516-1565), it not only included reports of luminous birds and many other types of phosphorescent fauna dating back to ancient times but also incorporated accounts of glowing plants (click here to read a ShukerNature article of mine dealing with anomalous light-emitting flowers) and even luminous stones.
An even greater work on luminescent animals appeared in 1647 – a mighty three-volume publication authored by Danish scientist Thomas Bartholin (1616-1680) entitled De Luce Animalium, of which its third volume was devoted entirely to glowing birds. Some of these were wholly mythical, such as the Egyptian phoenix, the incendiaria avis or incendiary bird (which set on fire any tree or house upon which it perched), and the caladrius (according to Roman mythology, a snow-white bird with healing powers), but allegedly real examples were also included.
Worth mentioning is that only a few years earlier, in 1641, a number of glowing fowls had attracted so much attention at a market in Montpellier, France, that even the distinguished French nobleman Henri de Bourbon (1552-1588), 2nd Prince of Condé, paid a special visit to observe them there. One, a cockerel, was killed in order to examine it more closely, and according to Bartholin it: "shone on all parts of his body with a remarkably strong light". That same year, a glowing hen was displayed at a market in Montebello, which "shone like a ball of white fire", inspiring Bartholin to opine somewhat drily: "It is a pity that the cock did not meet the hen; for we might then have obtained a breed of incandescent fowls"!
More recently, England, the Pyrenees, and the Vosges appear to be European regions from which accounts of luminous birds have emerged – with the most commonly reported bird types being owls (particularly barn owls) and herons. In some of these cases, they have been directly identifiable as birds, albeit ones that glow, usually white, pale yellowish-green, or reddish-yellow in colour; in certain other cases, the manner of their flight has identified them as birds.
The 'flap' of luminous owl sightings that occurred during 1907-1908 near the hamlet of Twyford in Norfolk, eastern England, is possibly the most famous, and last, to attract mainstream public and scientific attention, and has been widely documented, albeit with many variations and inaccuracies. Happily, however, a comprehensive, scrupulously-researched article entitled 'The Luminous Owls of Norfolk', prepared by veteran Fortean chronicler David W. Clarke, was published in 1994 within the inaugural volume of Fortean Studies, the short-lived scholarly journal of the longstanding British mysteries magazine Fortean Times, so this is the source that I have consulted when producing my own coverage here.
Back in 1897, gamekeeper Fred Rolfe saw on several successive evenings near King's Lynn in Norfolk an eerie bright blue light flying overhead. Finally, he was able to shoot it with his gun, and after it plummeted to the ground he discovered that it was a half-starved barn owl in very poor condition. The barn owl Tyto alba is a species well-known for its virtually pure-white plumage but which has not been formally confirmed scientifically to visibly glow. This incident remained uncirculated until January 1908, when Rolfe made its details public following numerous sightings of one or more glowing owls having been reported close to Twyford and the nearby Norfolk village of Foulsham during early and late 1907, as well as January 1908.
When making public the following information regarding Norfolk's glowing owl(s) during the early 20th Century, English naturalist Digby Piggott revealed that after visiting the specific locations in question during December 1907, he had received it directly from Foulsham-residing fellow naturalist and principal eyewitness R.J.W. Purdy.
Purdy had informed Piggott that while in the company of various other eyewitnesses, including his own son as well as a Mr Spencer, he had experienced several sightings of a glowing owl in flight near Twyford and Foulsham. The first sighting had taken place on 3 February 1907, with several more of what may (or may not) have been the same individual bird occurring during December 1907 and January 1908. Likening it in overall appearance to a lamp or lantern, Purdy recalled that on one occasion its luminescence was so powerful that even the branches among which it had perched were illuminated, and that its irradiance was comparable to that of a bicycle lamp seen 300-400 yards away!
Further observations of this remarkable owl by Purdy and other eyewitnesses suggested that its luminescence was confined to its breast, because its brightness was less powerful when it flew directly away from them, i.e. when only its back, wings, and tail were visible to them. Throughout the time period spanning these sightings, this owl's luminescence showed no sign of diminishing. Purdy identified the bird as a short-eared owl Asio flammeus. During this same period, moreover, sightings of a comparable creature were also being reported on a nightly basis elsewhere in Norfolk, at the Haddiscoe marshes nearly 30 miles southeast of Twyford, as documented at that time by renowned English ornithologist J.H. Gurney in the British periodical The Zoologist. Please consult David Clarke's article for an extensive coverage of individual eyewitness accounts from this 'flap', as well as Vol. 8 (spanning the years 1904-1909) of the Transactions of the Norfolk Naturalists' Society, and Vol. 66 (1908) of The Zoologist.
During the early 1920s, this phosphorescence phenomenon received renewed media attention following some additional sightings, but perhaps the most famous example from that time period remained unreported for almost 30 years, until the eyewitness in question, John Welman, documented it in an article entitled 'Forbidden Valley, which was published by Blackwood's Magazine in September 1948. Welman had been visiting a lake in Anatolia, Turkey, with a companion named Merrick when they beheld an incredible sight:
A luminous blob appeared on a hillside far away and wavered fitfully like a bicycle lamp seen at a distance on a windy night…It swung round a clump of trees about 200 yards away, and came winging, swiftly and silently, towards us. It was a bird. At least, it had the shape of a bird, and flew; but surely no mortal bird ever glowed, as this one did, with the incandescence of a gas-mantle [a nitrate-soaked fabric bag that produces a bright white light when heated by a flame; used in lanterns, gas lamps, and some oil lamps]. It looked enormous, though I do not say it was; such sudden brilliance rushing headlong at one out of the ambient dark, may have exaggerated its real size. That it flew like a bird and shone like a lamp were more certain impressions accepted by my startled mind. And when it came nearer, I saw that every feather of its plumage glittered with tiny points of light, a kind of frosted fire which, without the power to dazzle, was bright enough to illuminate the branches of a tree through which it passed. Its wide, luminous wings seemed to beat the air without disturbing it, for they made no sound whatever. I found myself gripping Merrick's arm and cowering down as it approached looming bigger and brighter every instant, until, seeming about to fly right in among us, it swerved aside and shot up in an arc to pass above our heads.
The barn owl is native to Turkey (and much else of the world too), and although Welman's above account provides scant details to assist in identifying the luminous bird taxonomically, the facts that its wing beats made no sound (a famous characteristic of the barn owl when seeking prey at night) and that although appearing enormous to the startled eyes of Welman it was nonetheless small enough to be able to fly between the branches of a tree collectively suggest that it may indeed have been a barn owl.
A number of notes on the subject of glowing birds had been published in the Revue Français d'Ornithologie by French ornithologist Louis Ternier using information supplied to him by Gurney regarding the Norfolk sightings, as well as some eyewitness reports emanating from northern Spain, and serious scientific attention had also been focused upon the subject by Dr W.L. McAtee of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. By the mid-1940s, McAtee had accumulated a sizeable dossier of eyewitness reports appertaining to glowing birds as diverse taxonomically as owls, night herons, and even Australian finches, which he published as an extensively-referenced article in the July 1947 issue of the American Midland Naturalist.
Evidently, sceptics notwithstanding, the phenomenon of luminous birds is genuine, but how can it be explained? Five principal potential solutions have been suggested by amateur naturalists and professional scientists alike down through the ages, and these will be discussed in Part 2 of this two-part review, to be posted here on ShukerNature very soon – don't miss it!
NB – All images of luminous owls included here were created by me using Grok.
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