Uri's Blog Notes from 44.483N, -92.261W, planet Earth

A star-studded night with Owls

Eastern Screech Owls! What I heard from around midnight until dawn this morning was not screeching. Rather it was an eery conversation between three owls, each of whom was perched very near the house. The first calls can only be described as a kind of plaintive "baaa-ing" answered immediately by a musical, two-note trilling that sounded very soothing and reassuring....sort of like "ooooooooh kaaaaaaaaaay." In our four years here I have never heard this sound. The Eastern Screech Owl audio samples on the internet are not really what I heard, but the tone and tenor of the sounds matches, so I can only guess that these were indeed Eastern Screech Owls of a very musical nature. Their calls, which are described by ornithologists as "whinnies and bounces" vary greatly. I don't care that I didn't get much sleep last night, it was thrilling to stand by the window watching Leo's shooting stars accompanied by the songs of owls.