Hi all, I returned with a shotgun mic and minidisc recorder this morning and was able to relocate the source of my mystery owl (it was a GREAT HORNED OWL, not Barn) and get both a visual ID and better recordings of the calls. Sound traveling over large distances (especially horizontally through vegetation) can be filtered by the environment and in this case it appears what I had heard was a fairly typical Great Horned Owl vocalization, but the distance had left me hearing (and initially, recording) just the lower frequency components of the calls, which lead to my initial confusion.
The recording made yesterday, which is best listened to with headphones and while watching the spectrogram: http://soundcloud.com/paul-j-hurtado/battelle-darby-owl-14aug2012 Here's the best clip from a visually confirmed GHOW this morning. The first version is closer to the raw recording, the second sounds better: http://soundcloud.com/paul-j-hurtado/great-horned-owl-15aug2012 (high pass filter only, WAV format) http://www.xeno-canto.org/107584 (high pass filter plus noise reduction using Audacity, MP3 format) As far as the ID problem, it seems that the the downslur at the end of these GHOW calls might be a good indicator of GHOW over BANO? Best, Paul On Tue, Aug 14, 2012 at 9:55 PM, Paul Hurtado <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello everyone, > > Early this morning I recorded (with my phone, unfortunately) what I think is > a Barn Owl just outside of Columbus Ohio where there have been unconfirmed > reports of Barn Owl in recent weeks. The vocalizations I heard were very > similar to Chris T-H's recording that was recently shared with this list, > but with a bit of a downslur at the end of the calls. The recording was > made while two individuals were apparently flying over mixed open > grassland/wetland area (if they were perched, they would have been > frequently flying from perch to perch). An adult Great Horned Owl was heard > far off in the distance, and the birds were never seen. > > I'd also love to know whether this is indeed a Barn Owl or could possibly be > something else (and if so, what)? > > A spectrogram and clip of the best call I managed to record (barely audible > without headphones and the volume turned up) can be found at > > http://soundcloud.com/paul-j-hurtado/battelle-darby-owl-14aug2012 > > Assuming these birds stick around, I might return to the area in the next > day or two with better equipment to get a decent recording and visual > confirmation of the ID. Until then, any and all comments are welcomed! > > Paul Hurtado > Columbus, OH -- NFC-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_WELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_RULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC-L_SubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NFC-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NFCL.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
