ML219791101
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
- Not specified
- Playback
- Not specified
Media notes
Female 'yip' calls. Pretty faint but can be heard.
Observation details
*extremely remarkable, hard-to-believe, and almost assuredly a Kenai Peninsula Borough all-time high count. 10 is not a typo. Five separate pairs were carefully detected this evening, and I quite possibly had at least one additional bird, but had to play it conservatively. There was a point where I heard 4 birds vocalize within the span of 5-10 seconds. Conditions were quite good, it was peak time for vocalizing WESOs, and I put in more than 2 hours of effort quite late in the evening (starting 2+ hours post-sunset) when these owls are most likely more vocal. Yes, they will often call earlier in the night (and even somewhat occasionally during the day), but in my experience later in the night only increases the call frequency. I've been told there are papers that support this fact. In my opinion, cloudiness and moon phase have little effect on vocalization frequency of owls. Time of year, wind, precipitation, and temperature (the warmer the better) are the conditions to pay attention to (probably in an order something like that). I was quite patient with each singing male to confirm that there was a female present as well, as she would vocalize much less frequently. Amazingly, every male was paired up. It was also notable to me that it appeared like a few of the territories abutted another pair's territory, which also caused me to take more time to make sure they weren't flying back and forth. If I didn't know better I would have assumed this species was common in the Seward area in proper habitat. I have certainly gotten the impression from old school Alaska birders that WESOs are believed to be increasing in the state, so perhaps this is another data point in that trend. Curiously, no other owls were heard tonight. It sure seems like NSWOs have an earlier breeding cycle in this region and they are probably incubating (maybe even feeding young?) right now--which leads to considerably less frequent singing. I had several singing in this area more than a month ago. If there are any birders looking for advice with this species, feel free to email me at: sulli.gibson@gmail.com
Technical information
- Recorder
- Microphone
- Accessories
- Original file size
- 1.08 MB