November 6, 2009 - 2
Cool sightings of the week:Happened on the job site this week. It was just yesterday, late in the afternoon and I was packing up my truck for the day when an odd sound was heard coming from the woods. Sort of a screech and rather loud, the obvious bird call was heard after dark so I figured it must be an owl and perhaps even an Eastern Screech Owl since it's call was a screech. I mentioned the sound to my friends and they said, "Oh, yeah, we hear that all the time" and seemed somewhat unimpressed through their familiarity with the sound and their close proximity to the forest area. After returning home and doing some research, I discovered that the sound couldn't have been the call of an Eastern Screech Owl because they don't screech so much as sing a sort of musical tone when they call. I checked further and found that the sound we were hearing was probably that of a Barn Owl.
About eighteen inches high, the Barn Owl is a slim and long-legged owl with a large, white facial disk and dark eyes. Multi-colored brown and gold feathers above provide a striking contrast to the owl's white or buffy spotted breast. Surviving in open farmlands, grasslands, deserts and suburbs. The Barn Owl has the most acutely developed sense of hearing of all of the owls and can pinpoint it's prey with one hundred percent accuracy in total darkness! It's voice consists of mostly harsh hissing or screeching sounds along with some metallic clicks. Sure, it was more of an audible event than a visual sighting, but either way, getting to hear a Barn Owl screeching after dark on a cool Autumn evening this week was very cool!
Heard on WDVR FM every Friday at 3PM during Anything Goes!
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