Hootie. No Blowfish.

Barred Owl
Originally uploaded by crookrw

This photo has been graciously allowed under the Creative Commons license at Flickr.com. Please do stop by and see the photographer's other works? Maybe say hello while you're there.



They say it is bad luck to hear an owl in the daytime, and it's even worse to see one. So I guess I should count myself lucky that my efforts to spot our local hooter have been unsuccessful. Otherwise, I'd be doomed.

Identifying a bird just from the call isn't as easy as you'd think. Bird books try to capture the sound in words, which as far as I can tell is just a cruel joke. The barred owl call is described as "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?"

I get that we're looking for a cadence here, but I'm still clueless. Is it Who cooks for you, as opposed to cooking for Bob next door? Who cooks for you, but doesn't do windows? Or maybe an astounded Who cooks for you, as in This meatloaf is food for the gods? Are you seeing my dilemma here?

Fortunately, this is the age of the interwebs, where all you need is time and patience to sort through sound files of likely suspects. The owl we hear in the daytime is a barred owl, and if the video below works you'll hear one call at the beginning and another around the 28th second to the end. ::Man, I hope it works.::

Barred Owl Calls from My Maracas on Vimeo.

Sorry about the silence in the middle. Video is new for me. I should have filled it in with a Crocodile Hunter voice: "Crikey! That there's a bloody North Amarican bahrred owl! Let's see if we can't catch 'im, shall we? Amayzing! There 'e is! Oh he's a beauty! I'm gunna climb up there and grab 'im for ya! Hold my beer and watch this!"


Click Here: Nature Notes.