Gina,
I too would agree that it is a Southern Boobook. HANZAB (Volume 4) states the owl ‘…probably
has widest known range of calls of any Australian Ninox; calls variously
described as hoots, croaks, brays, yelps, growls, trills, screams and squeals.
Calls vary from low to load and from soft to strident’.
Cheers
Alastair
From: Gina Wyatt
[
Sent: Tuesday, 9 January 2007 9:32
PM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] What owl
is that?
Hello all,
I am a complete newbie in this bird-spotting bizzo! I have just returned from
walking the dogs having spotted some kind of owl (my very first ever!).
We were doing the circuit of Chauvel
Circle in Chapman when we heard a bizarre hoarse
trilling whistling call. We thought it might some loud, strange cicada or
bat perhaps - we could hear another calling off to the west - and very quietly
continued on our way. As we walked the calling was tending to move forward away
from us. Keeping our eyes peeled we finally spotted something winged moving
between the trees. By the time we reached Darwinia Tce the unidentified
flying object was perched on the big gum near the Darwinia Tce underpass. I got
a reasonable look at it (long enough for it to have a good look at me too, and
a lovely owly blink) but as it was so dim, all I can say for certain is it was
an owl, a reasonably small one, probably greyish brown in colour with possibly
some banding on the feathers?, and continued to make this very high-pitched,
trilling hoarse whistle. It then flew off to the north-west.
I've listened to the calls of the Southern Boobook
and Tawny Frogmouth on the COG website and it most definitely wasn't one of
those. Can anyone tell me what my exciting sighting was of?
Cheers
Gina
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