![]() It was recorded from a bird that appeared to be an adult, though given the late date it may have been a first-year bird that had recently acquired adult plumage. Meanwhile, the following recording helps demonstrate how variable this vocalization can be, even within individuals. Here’s a fairly similar example, from a bird still in the nest (with a Say’s Phoebe in the background): Great Horned Owl juvenile begging from nest, Baca County, CO. The end result is a call that sounds like an inhaled hoarse scream. The above recording is typical in that the sound is mostly noisy, but partly voiced - in this case, even slightly polyphonic. (Click here to listen to the above recording at the Macaulay Library.) The shriek is usually short (half a second or less), typically slurred either up or down, and almost always sounds at least partially squeaky (as evidenced by the banding on the spectrograms): Presumed juvenile Great Horned Owl, Walla Walla County, WA. Juveniles shriek while still in the nest, and continue shrieking on a regular basis until at least December or January. I tend to associate the shriek of Great Horned Owl with young birds, but according to the BNA account, it can also be given by adult males and, especially, adult females. Thus, it seemed like a good idea to post on how to tell these two (rather unpleasant) sounds apart. And in areas where both species are possible, I think that a number of birders may regularly misidentify the shrieks of young Great Horneds with the “shhhhk!” of the Barn Owl. However, back when I first started tracking these screeches to their source, I was usually hoping for a Barn Owl. In most of the cases I’ve been able to solve, the culprit has turned out to be a young Great Horned Owl - one of the most vocal youngsters in the avian world (though one of the least vocally skilled, if I may be so bold as to say so). Photo by Stevie-B (Creative Commons 2.0).Īround this time of year, I tend to get a lot of questions from people who want to know what kind of bird might make frequent loud harsh screeches at dawn, at dusk, or in the middle of the night. Photo by Thomas Halverstadt (Creative Commons 2.0). The recording was made made with an AudioMoth adapted to accept an external microphone plugged into a Wildtronics 22 inch parabolic dish and configurated to record 15 minute segments from 20:00 to 07:00.Independent young Great Horned Owl, Louviers, Colorado. I heard another daylight vocalization on 20 March 2020, one of the few times I have heard one at all in five years of deliberate efforts to find and census these owls on this island. I originally heard this owl call about 17:00 on 24 March. This environment would likely be hostile to a predatory Barred Owl, which prefers old-growth deciduous forests. The location bordered a saltmarsh with several dead trees in which woodpeckers had bored cavities. This bird too is a probable transient which was unsuccessful and has since moved on. (There are transient wintering birds here, infrequently caught in trail camera images, but otherwise silent.) This recording is the trill, or bounce song, indicative of an owl which had likely found an acceptable nest/territory and was searching for a mate. ![]() Development has played a role but predation by Barred Owls is the likely primary cause. This species is largely extirpated from this location and and is now scarce in Chatham County, Georgia. ![]()
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