Oh...I was still thinking of the short ear owl that nests in tall grass... i was bitten by a baby copperhead. ....needless to say i have no pity on them
No, that short-ear owl thing was this city boy's limited knowledge at work. And you just taught me something. I did not know that they were ground-nesting. Regarding that baby copperhead...I once read that the bite of venomous baby snakes can be worse than the bite of the adult snake. Apparently an adult snake can better control how much (if any) venom it injects, so won't waste it on a creature (us) it is striking at merely to get that creature to back off. A baby snake has yet to develop such control, so although it has less venom, it will completely empty its venom when it strikes. This is the only copperhead I've seen since I've been here: I was sitting on my tractor when I encountered it, and the thing struck at my front end loader!!! Needless to say, I did not dismount. Nor did I run it over. It's still out there, killing rodents and being a food item for the black snakes.
I've been using the owls as an excuse to not cut my acreage. I didn't want to ruin the environment for their food. Well, I cut it today. I noticed a couple of snakes and frogs beat feet (or their equivalent) as I was on the tractor. I hope I've not done a bad thing. I was thinking that the long grass was too thick, and making it shorter would expose the critters. I mean, there's a point where they can't see thru it...right??? The internet was of no help on this. I want the owls to hang around. dammit.
the concern you have for the critters is heart warming... sound like you have what they need... our owl is still here...turns out to be barred owl..like yours...finally heard the call
That's interesting, Teresa. They're not always easy to discern. I swear that the mother owl has coloring just like a short-eared owl, but everything I read says the only way to differentiate the sexes is the pitch of their call (the females is higher.) But that seems awfully subjective. I wish I had recorded the female screeching at me for so long. From what I read, recordings of the barred owl screech are uncommon, while their hoots are everywhere. And this screech was not from afar...she was in her Julia Child pose 20 feet away and letting me have it! You know what's funny is that I bought this remote place on such a large lot so I'd have room to shoot (target practice, not hunting.) But I don't want to ruin my critter sanctuary. It's the largest pleasure I have living here.
I might have mentioned it in a previous thread if you have this information then just disregard these comments. There is an app but I've been using where you can record the birds song or chirp and it will tell you what bird it is. I have had some instances where it didn't recognize the Birds sound. It might be able to distinguish the type of Owl you have. I have used it even when the bird was not in sight and it works very well.
Thanks, Tony. I'll check that out. Cornell seems to have the most extensive collection of bird sound clips when you go looking for data. I did not know there was a song identification app.
It worked pretty well for me recently I had a bird song I didn't recognize the bird was not in sight. I use this app and it came up Carolina wren, eventually I spotted the bird which was new to me. When I first downloaded it I was trying it on every bird that came on my property. It works pretty well, it has problems if there's a machine running, or car runs by.
The thing is (as you know) there are different calls for different situations. And so many birds can sound the same. I've yet to pull up a clip of the short ear owl screech and the barred owl screech and put them side-by-side, but I bet they are indistinguishable.
You're right that's to our ears, not necessarily to the electronics which might be able to detect frequency differences, it's worth a try.
we got this shot of the owl...a quiet screeching sound is what we hear...i am sure it could be louder.. I thought maybe it's imitating a sound that would attract a squirrel or other near....with all our bird feeders...this owls gonna have easy pickings...