owl howl?

There were some weird screaming sounds outside for a few minutes night before last. It could have been a raccoon or some other nocturnal animal or it could have been an owl. I've heard Great Horned Owls scream; they make a really terrifying 'bloody murder' sound -- maybe not (in my experience) quite the same as what I heard last night. But Long-eared Owls also apparently make some kind of similar sound; you can hear it on some of the recordings.

I heard the long owl calls again last night. They had the form of a slightly whistlely scream, rising and then falling in pitch. Some of the longer ones had a quaver in them but there were no whinnies, bleats or trills as you would expect from a Screech Owl. I didn't hear any hooting but Lorna did and she described it as rhythmic, medium range and closest to the the Great Horned Owl pattern; that's pretty much what I heard three nights ago. I would have said that there were two different birds if I had not heard long calls immediately followed by rhythmic hoots at least twice the night before the night before last; it all certainly sounded like a single bird. What owl has both the long call (a bit like a Screech Owl but without the whinnies, bleats and trills) and the rhythmic hoots (like a Great Horned Owl but perhaps a little less deep and boomy)? I'm still waiting for the Crows, busybody Jays or Chickadees to show me a roosting owl in the daytime.

The 'post-breeding dispersal' birds were all present the past two days: Royal Terns on the creek, Yellow-crowned Night Heron and Spotted Sandpiper on the pond at low tide, and 'chinking' Northern Waterthrush in the Marsh Elder thickets. An Eastern Kingbird showed up on the marsh yesterday afternoon. This is a local breeding species which has nested at the edge of the marsh in past years and frequently turns up here in the spring and fall. Great Crested Flycatcher, another local flycatcher, is still active. As opposed to the Kingbird which likes open areas and has become more sporadic in its appearances, the Great Crested calls come from the woods almost every day both early in the morning and late in the afternoon or early evening.

Eric Salzman