Monday, October 22, 2007

Great Horned Owl


For a couple of months we've had a strange bird sound outside at night. It's a kind of little shriek that repeats every 30 seconds or so, for long periods during the night. James has identified it as a Great Horned Owl - a young one, who is asking its parents for food. Tonight James actually found it. It's at the top of a tree in the marsh across the street from the house, not far from the road. I've just been out to look at it. It's just an owl shaped thickening at the top of the tree -- but the shriek is definitely coming from there. Even though you really can't see anything, it's exciting to see the blob, when all we've had is the sound for months. I downloaded this picture, but I haven't found a loop of the sound that I can copy. I'll work on that. We have a program that has the sounds of all the native birds, maybe I can copy it off of that.

2 comments:

Vivi said...

Totally cool. Although I was disappointed to learn that the photo wasn't one you took (I was prepared to be very impressed with your camera).

peaceable_tate said...

I love owls. There is something so alien about them.