On a still night just after harvest, there is an expectant silence. Chaff and chalk dust hang suspended in the air, giving the evening a milky lightness. I crunch conspicuously over squirrel-shattered hazelnut shells, lying on the hard ground like scattered milk teeth. In the field oak next to the wood, a tawny owl calls, loud and long, its voice breaking, before petering out as if it has run out of puff: hoo hoooo hooergh. It is one of this year’s owlets, and the first time it has tried its adult voice. Last night, and every night in recent weeks, creaked with chicks calling to their parents: chiseek, chiseek, chiseeeek. It has felt momentous. I listen for more, but it seems that is it for now. I imagine an owl, abashed. But then an answer comes back from the wood, a hesitantly offered whooo? Then a young female tries her voice, adjusts it: keree … keeewick! The field oak owlet answers again, hoarsely, and I see its silhouette move through the branches like a small rugby ball lobbed underarm. It calls again, loudly now, and I can feel its excitement. Then teenage owls, near and far, begin practising their grown-up voices. Some shyly, others inappropriately loudly, causing a short, embarrassed silence, until one replies and they hoot together like a pair of classroom jokers. They call over one another, interrupting, not having learned the listening pauses that help to fill the night in this game of call and response. In this manner, Trappshill Wood talks to Nightingales Copse, talks to Redwoods Covert, across the dark spaces in between, the owls throwing their voices out into the uncrowded amphitheatre of the night, growing in confidence. After half an hour, the woods fall silent once more. The night deepens and I unstick myself from the oak tree I’ve been leaning on, its bark imprinted on my bare arm, and head home. It occurs to me then, that I didn’t hear a single adult; that they must have given the younger ones the floor on this owl prom night.