Last night a couple hours after dusk I heard a strange gurgling call outside and my wife asked me what it was. I told her it was a hoot (Barred) owl. We have lots of them around here and often at dark or just before sunrise they will start calling back and forth to each other. It seems like there is one up every side holler and sometimes the conversations go on for several minutes. They have a very diverse vocabulary if you have never listened to them and they don't just hoot. I had trimmed the spring run-off and ditch in my back yard yesterday before dark and I removed a lot of cover and exposed a lot of frogs and snakes and such in the process. I know I accidentally killed at least one ring neck snake with my line trimmer and chased another one or two into the water. This morning about 2:30 am we were awakened by the most gosh-awful racket outside our window. It seems several owls had come to visit and they hooted, they gurgled, they chortled, and they made other unimaginable sounds. My wife had no idea what it was but said she heard a squealing so evidently one caught a baby rabbit (I saw one about 40-50 yards from there by my woodshed - the first in about 5 years since I got rid of the multi-flora roses on my property) or a field mouse. Becky went to the window and could see one big owl by the night light perched on a fence post about 20 yards from our window. It flew and she said it was huge and later worried if it might have been after 13 lb Sampson, my catfish treeing Rat Terrier. I think he is likely too big for them and he was safe in his dog house.
I did not get a picture but what I really wish I could have gotten was an audio recording of them. If you have never heard a bunch of owls (I saw on Jeopardy the other night a group of owls is called a Wisdom or Parliament.) you just don't know what you are missing.
We used to get the owls going from time to time when we lived out on the west coast. It reminded me of the supposed jungle noises in the old Tarzan shows of the 60's. My better 1/2 with a memory informs me that Johny Weismuller was Tarzan in the old shows. Though you couldn't prove it by me.
Good report, WV. I never heard them that close where you could hear the details of their conversation. I hear them back in the woods with the usual "Who cooks, who cooks, who cooks for yooouuuuuuuuuuu" but that's about it. Sometimes I hear a screech owl and wish I hadn't.
I have some friends that lived in GA for a time. They said one Sunday in church, the pastor kept mentioning a "who da" in his sermon. They asked some GA friends after the service what a "who da" is. They really got to laughing as they explained it was "hoot owl"!😂
It seems like the last year or so we have a big bunch of them here they are really vocal right before dark, and right at daybreak. It really upsets the crows in the area
The last couple nights they had a big powwow around midnight but fortunately it was further back in the woods and not right in the back yard.
Crows hate owls and hawks and such and I have seen hundreds of them circling one raptor.
In Nevada we great Great Horned Owls in the yard all the time. (GHOs). I like to hear them late at night. I sleep in the backyard sometimes, and there can be GHOs in the top of the tipi poles. My dog runs up and down the fence chasing coyotes. Sometimes the neighborhood donkeys are braying. I use ear plugs.
The squeals that you mentioned may be young birds recently out of the nest. They squeal to let the adults know where they are to feed them. One year I had young Great-horned Owls squealing behind the house at night and it took me a while to figure out what they were. Young Barred Owls have a similar squeal.
I love to be sitting in the woods very early or late when the owls crank up their vocals, but it can also make the "skin crawl" on the back of your neck. Nature at it's best.
I probably told this story before, but, sitting on a leaning tree stand early one morning when a great horned owl thought I must have been a critter of edible nature. He swooped down and flared off when I got excited. I thought I was being attacked by the demon of the woods.
My older brother and I were fishing on the Suannee River near Old Town Fla one day and we spotted one on a live oak limb. I pitched a long rubber worm up there over a limb next to him and wiggled it up and down a couple of times. He bobbed his head then attacked it. I hooked him and pulled him into the river where he was floating on outstretched wings. He started flapping and got some air under him and broke my line and flew off with my worm.
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He gave a big hoot when this showed up.
Great pictures. Thanks for sharing.
Yes, to great pictures.
Some of the West Virginia deep coal miners were excellent "owl hooters". That's how they communicated with one another in the mines while practicing for turkey hunting.
Ron,
Yes, hooting like an owl is the typical way to locate a gobbler on his roost in the spring. A turkey just has to answer when an owl hollers before sunup After sunrise people use pileated woodpecker (Wood hen), crow and coyote calls. I have seen fired up gobblers answer car horns, dogs barking, and thunder drives them insane. When my son was about 16-17 they went turkey hunting and were late coming back (Usually if you are going to get one you get him right at sunrise when he flies off the roost). I figured they had shot one and were tracking it. When they showed up I asked "Where's the turkey?" Sean's buddy Josh said "He'd have come if he could". They said they were hunting near a pasture and a fired up gobbler would gobble every time a cow would moo. He would answer their hen calls but not come so they tried to sneak up on him. They'd stop and cluck and he'd answer but not come. Finally they got to where they could see him - in a farmer's pen. No wonder he would not come.
Yesterday, at dusk, I had a red phase Screech-Owl sitting in the entrance hole of one of the boxes I have for them in the yard. First red one in my yard and first I've seen in a long time. I've had Barred Owls come in when I imitated their calls. They'll hoot back and forth at you; it's a riot. One actually followed me some distance when I decided to hike back to my truck.
I typically have been hearing the big old hoot owls at dusk and sometimes in the morning but yesterday just after sunrise a pair or more of screech owls set up a lengthy conversation. It was real neat to listen to their loud calls especially knowing how little they actually are.
Barred Owls in the spring when your waiting for that first tom turkey to gobble on opening morning nothing better in life 8).
Go to Utube and search "owl in christmas tree". A really neat story.
At ~3:00 am today I heard a screech owl so I opened a window and could hear the screech-owl in the back yard and a Great Horned Owl in the distance. I never tire of owls.
The most amusing thing to watch is a murder of crows annoying a great horned owl or worse a red tail hawk .The red tail owns the skies during the day and big owl at night .They will enact revenge . ;D
I have seen but never understood that. I bet I saw over 200 crows circling and cawing one day at my FLI place in N. Ala and right in the middle of the circling mass was a red tailed hawk. I would have feared for my life if I were surrounded by that many crows. The crows would swoop at him but I don't know if they were doing much damage. I don't know if the hawk survived or not. Blue jays will also give a hawk or owl fits.
Another common sight where I grew up was mockingbirds and even smaller songbirds chasing crows. I guess they were so much faster and more agile they could duck and dodge and the crow could not catch them.
I there are only a few crows the hawk will escape .Then as they scatter cawing away on level flight brer hawk is gaining altitude .It's only a matter of time before there are black feathers every where .Try as they might they can't out run him .
When we had chickens and my wife would see a hawk she would caw for the crows, being mortal enemies if they were within earshot they would usually come to chase the hawk away.
Crows are pretty smart .They would fly over at just above tree top level,about 110 feet .My good old Marlin goose gun picked them off real easy .Then they raised the ceiling to about 200 feet ,couldn't reach them .
Before we had chickens we had corn, those crows could tell the shotgun from the rifle, knowing at ~150 yards they could keep on munching if I had the shotgun on the porch but they had better scoot if I had the rifle :D.
One morning while on a walk I saw an owl sitting on a fence post on the other side of the road, that is not common here at least in my experience. It watched me go by then flew off. I find them fascinating.
Two birds the totally amaze be are turkeys and great horned owls .I've yet to figure how birds of that size with their wing spans can fly right through the branches of a tree without colliding with it .
Al Smith, go to Utube and search "Goshawk flies thru small hole" to see a master of flying through the trees.
Took my 12 year old grandson to the Syracuse, New York airport yesterday to look for Snowy Owl, there have been 2 there lately. Found one right away. We also saw an adult male Northern Harrier and 3 Red-tailed Hawks. Airports are magnets for these bird because of the open nature around the runways and the voles in the grass areas between the runways.
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Barred owls 🦉 make some very interesting sounds. They are the ones I hear on the creek bottom at night more than the Great Horned
Some good information and different sounds on the link after you scroll halfway through.
The pair hootin it up sound is one that I know it's the Barred Owl.
https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/barred-owl (https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/barred-owl)
They hang out down in the shop at the sawmill. I was in there grabbing a leaned up 1x12x12' the other morning and heard something, looked up and saw a barred owl looking back down at me :D
Birds of prey are a hoot to watch .We've got them from sparrow hawks to bald eagles and probably nearly every kind of owls
The funniest thing I ever saw was a few years back a juvenile eagle landed on the side of a 3 foot oak trying to get a squirrel .Around and around they went .The squirrel out foxed the eagle that finally gave up the chase .The eagle might be fast in the air but no match for a squirrel in a tree .
Al,
I watched a hunting show several months back where they (I am pretty sure it was Jackie Bushman) were hunting squirrels in Alabama. They had good squirrel dogs and we using air rifles but 2 guys had red tailed hawks. A couple of times the dogs treed and they released the hawk and it would circle the tree and grab the squirrel. One time the squirrel ran in a leaf nest and the hawk just exploded on and leaves went everywhere and the hawk came out with the squirrel. The funniest clip was when the squirrel leaped out of the tree from 20-30 feet in the air and the hawk was right behind it with them running and jumping along the ground. What amazed me was the hawk chased it down and caught the squirrel.
A few years ago a pair of red tails had a nest in a white oak that was about 50 feet from my house .When they would bring in food for the chicks the squirrels . hid under the bottom of the big limbs .
Later on in the year the three young hawks were like a tag team .Two in the trees and one flying .They were very successful snatching squirrels on the ground .
I always figured if you have predators you have to have prey .If you have prey the eco system must be working . Mother
nature does a good job of balancing it out if you leave her alone .
Al,
Your young eagle comment reminded me of a fishing trip on our local COE Bluestone Lake. I was easing down the river feeding the lake using my trolling motor and pitching little jig spinners under the overhanging trees for bluegills. As I approached a willow growing in the water an injured duck flew/ran out of it. It could not fly over foot or so above the lake and was running as much as flying. Suddenly a juvenile eagle swooped down after it and the last I saw the duck flew/ran across the top of the lake with the eagle a few feet behind. I lost sight of them as they went around a curve in the river and I never saw if the eagle caught it or not. I suspect it did. A mature/experienced eagle would probably have made a steeper, faster attack and caught the duck before it knew it was around.
On another trip very near the same site I saw 2 large birds approaching and about 75 yards in front of me I saw a mature eagle crash into an osprey that was carrying a large fish in its claws. The osprey went tumbling in the air and dropped the fish in the shallow water next to the shore. The eagle made a tight circle and reached down and picked up and flew off with the fish. The osprey was following about 10' behind as they flew out of sight. I doubt he attacked the eagle and was more likely hoping it would drop the fish.
My wife RIP saw a mature bald eagle snatch a rabbit behind the house .It came in on a silent glide out of no where snatched it with one leg and flapped about 5 times and it reached the tops of these 100 foot oaks and was gone just like that .
The funniest owl thing was with about a foot of snow on the ground .Great horned owl came crashing through a blue spruce right outside my back window after a squirrel .The squirrel just hopped up about 6 feet above ground in the limbs and scolded the owl ,it knew the bird couldn't get to it .That big bird looked like it had disgusted look on it's face .I nearly fell out of my chair laughing .
I was at Camp LeJeune NC waiting to go to the pistol range and was parked next to a marsh. There was a leafless tree near the parking lot over the marsh and there was a hawk sitting in it. He looked down and nonchalantly hopped off the limb about 20 high and gently floated to the grass below then flew back up with a large rat in his claws.
A larger bird of prey you can watch .A sparrow hawk AKA American Kestrel hits so fast all you see is a puff of feathers that was once a small bird .Hard to spot they are so small and fast as greased lightning .
Kestrels will readily nest in a nest box of the right dimensions put in the right place. Preferably on an exposed pole around 15' (or more) above the ground near grassy fields/hayfields. They will divebomb you if they have young when you get near the box.
I used to see them sitting on power lines and field fences near grassy hayfields and pastures when I was a kid but I have not seen a Sparrow Hawk/Kestrel in many years. I thought they mostly ate grasshoppers and small mice and such.
Sparrow hawks are the most numerous hawks in North America and also the most elusive .They are only the size of a blue jay .
Kestrels are still reasonably common here, but in declining numbers due to the area becoming increasingly forested. They are a falcon. Another falcon we now have is Merlin. They were nearly non-existant here for a period of time, but they have made a real comeback. Amoung their attributes is a sweet tooth for European Starlings.
This winter has been tough. Great horned owls, barn owls, long-eared owls and for the first time a flammulated owl.
I hear them most nights.