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Re: Unknown Owl

Subject: Re: Unknown Owl
From: Marty Michener <>
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2002 11:22:38 -0400
At 12:48 AM 4/13/02 +0000, Luis wrote:
>Hello and help, there are two cuts of an owl I recorded last year
>while at the colombian amazon. I haven't been able to identify it. It
>has a similar voice to Lophostrix cristata but the structure is like
>that of Ciccaba virgata !

Saludos Luis!

My expertise in owl sounds is very poor, indeed.  In the lower USA 48
states, I often record owl sounds nobody can ID to species.  It is because=

they vary a lot within a species.  When I arrived at Cornell with my 7 inch=

reel of 60 species I recorded in High School, one was an owl sound from
birder-central, Eastern Pennsylvania, that no one at Cornell could ID, then=

or now.  Last year I recorded two owls in south-eastern Utah which I saw,
in silhouette before dawn.  They were slightly smaller than Barred Owls,
very familiar to me, and no ear tufts.  By range and description they had
to be Spotted Owls, but the sounds are not like those of any other recorded=

Strix occidentalis.  It was a short (0.3 second) rise-fall whistle, with
fundamental at 2kHz,and all overtones (4, 6, 8, 10, 12 kHz).

My point here is that some of the best known American owls give calls that=

are not familiar to "experts".

Having said that, your owls certainly are near the low range, at 300 Hz,
more or less. The few recordings of typical Ciccaba virgata range from 400=

to 700 Hz.  The only reference sound I could locate on the web of Pulsatrix=

perspicillata, which I have seen but not heard or recorded, is lower, from=

200 to 800 Hz, but, of course, pulses like a bouncing ball.

Good luck.

my very best,

Marty Michener
MIST Software Associates
75 Hannah Drive, Hollis, NH 03049


coming soon : EnjoyBirds bird identification software.




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