Alan Morris wrote:
I am sure that I have lost the thread of this convoluted message by now
and if so I do apologise but I think that the mystery bird heard calling
was at Wee Jasper on the NSW South West Slopes. Wee Jasper is outside
the range of the Yellow-bellied Glider which is basically a glider of
the coastal forests, particularly littoral, rainforests and wet gullies.
Powerful Owls mostly only give the "who, who" calls. The "Screaming
Woman Bird" is the Barking Owl which usually gives this call during July
and August (in NSW), during courtship & territorial matters. Barking
Owls should occur at Wee Jasper.
I hesitate to add to this muddy thread, but feel obliged to do so ...
It seems to me that many members of the public and birders hear various
kinds of nocturnal screams/shrieks/etc., and almost invariably these are
sheeted home to Barking Owls. In my humble experience, the Barker's
scream is relatively rarely heard, and may be overestimated. What is
almost certainly being underestimated at the same time is the
distribution of various of the big Tyto owls. Without wanting to start
a rush of spurious Sooty/Masked Owl records, I'd invite birders to
listen to a few recordings of these big birds, and observe how some of
the calls sound somewhat like a screaming human (female or otherwise).
The reason I mention this is partly because last night I found myself
seated at the kitchen table with a minidisk recorder, CD player and
cassette player - and various tapes/CDs of owls. My task was to compile
a minidisk of owl calls to use in a survey tonight. As I was (aurally)
going through the local owl pantheon (Boobook, Barker, Powerful, Masked,
Sooty, Barn), I saw the looks of amusement on my partner's face, and
fielded a few questions from our 11 year old down the hall. "What are
you listening to!!!!???? Sounds like someone being murdered". This was
mainly in response to Masked and Sooty calls. So there's an opinion
from the un-ornithological on what big Tyto owls sound like - it
confirms my suspicions about over reporting of Barker screams (as above).
My $0.02 worth on the subject ...
--
=================================
Lawrie Conole
Senior Ecologist
Ornithology & Terrestrial Ecology
Ecology Australia Pty. Ltd.
Flora and Fauna Consultants
88B Station Street
FAIRFIELD VIC 3078 Australia
E-mail:
Internet: http://www.ecologyaustralia.com.au/
Ph: (03) 9489 4191; Mob: (0419) 588 993
Fax: (03) 9481 7679
ABN 83 006 757 142
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