ML95582231
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age and sex
- Unknown age, Unknown sex - X
- Sounds
- Song
- Playback
- Playback not used
Observation details
ORIGINALLY ENTERED AS "OWL SP." From my open window I heard an owl (presumed) calling outside at 12:30AM. My first thought was Northern Pygmy-Owl by the cadence, but it really sounded too low in pitch, and more "breathy" than I would expect from a NOPO, so I tried my best to get a recording. Unfortunately all I had to record with was my iPhone, and it was also raining. At this point I was wondering if it might be a Long-eared Owl. I've never heard one before, but it seemed to be close to what I remembered from recordings. After puzzling it over myself for a while, I sent the recording to Scott Weidensaul. Here is what he had to say. "Thanks for... the recording. I've listened to it several times, using headphones and even trying to clean it up a bit with Audacity software, and it was a bit of a puzzle. Given your location, you don't have a lot of possibilities, and the two most likely are northern pygmy-owl and great gray. The note seems almost bi-syllabic, and as you say more of whoo-ot than a toot. It lacks the crisp, mechanical quality of a NOPO call, and discounted that species quickly. In that respect it's more reminiscent of a great gray, except that the pitch is too high for a normal GGOW male hoot. However, female great grays have a very nasal "whoop" call that's a food solicitation cry, and I think it's a pretty good match, especially given that it's far off in your recording and thus modulated by distance a bit." After I informed him that GGOW are rare here in Southeast AK, Scott felt less sure of that ID (especially given the poor quality of the recording), but still felt it was the best match he could find. I never heard (or saw) the owl again after that. The recording was terrible to begin with, but it sounds even more faint after uploading it into the Macaulay Library. If someone wants to tackle the puzzle, I would be happy to share the original file. *EDIT* 5/28/18 After Nat Drumheller heard the recording recently, he suspected Flammulated Owl. Since then, many birders experienced with FLOW have said they believe that's what it is. I would add that although the recording is faint, the sound is fairly true to what I was hearing in person. The first two notes of the recording are the closest to what I was hearing. Dave Sonneborn-- "(Jon Dunn) agreed that it sounds like a Flammulated and nothing else." 5/14/18 Lance Benner, fide Cameron Eckert-- "The bird in the recording sure sounds like a flammulated owl to me both in the frequency (pitch) of the hoots, their duration, and their cadence. The principal source of possible confusion in much of the west would be with long-eared owl, but the bird in the recording is vocalizing at a different frequency. In addition, in my experience, long-eared owls do not normally hoot so late in the breeding season, but flammulated owls will, although it's not common for that species either. Here in southern California Aug. 11 is right about the time that FLOWs stop vocalizing and become very difficult to locate. "Given the location, though, there could be other species that might be confused with a flammulated owl, but if so, I'm not sure what they would be. As Scott said, this does NOT sound at all like a northern pygmy owl. I can also rule out northern saw-whet, western screech, barred, great horned, or boreal. I have no experience hearing great gray owls, but it doesn't sound like recordings of those that I've heard. "Flammulated owls can be quite faithful to nesting territories from year-to-year, so it would be great if someone could go there again soon and try to hear, record, and ideally see the source of this sound. If it is a flammulated owl, which I think it is, then there's a decent chance it will be in that area again this spring. "Obviously this is much farther north than most records for this species, but this is a bird that was also overlooked across significant portions of its range in the west until the 1960s because nobody checked."
Technical information
- Recorder
- iPhone 6 SE
- Microphone
- none
- Accessories
- none
- Original file size
- 345.03 KB