Sounds

I have not posted for weeks! Barred owls call here nearly every night. Sometimes we hear calls early in the evening - and even before dark - and more often a first scream wakes us long after human noises cease for the night. And then we listen to typical barred owl calls until we fall asleep again. Maine Summer Nightbird Survey is now in progress. We plan to survey evening of 18 JUNE if sky is bright with full moon and weather is otherwise suitable. More later when we have surveyed.

Recent evenings and early mornings between 2130 and 0100 hours barred owls have called back and forth from our woodlot. One owl has a very distinctive opening hoot. Perhaps it learned to call from a chicken, for a harsh 'cock a doo' like a rooster crow is the nature of its first three syllables with more typical barred owl hoots to finish each call.

I just collected all the data for the 4 MOMP routes conducted by Unity College students. I will post the complex data here as I find a convenient way to load into this software. The quick summary is 4 owls on Albion 21-4-A, 10 owls on Clinton 21-4-B, 13 owls on 22-3-A Knox, and 9 owls on 14-1-B Montville for a total of 36 owls on the 40 sites. Northern saw whet, long-eared, barred, and great horned owls were tallied.

News filtered back to me that a week ago this morning our cell phone calls to Media Lab were recorded on the Owl Project webpage. We called according to Dale's instructions, but we did not appreciate that our calls were connected to the MIT server. Dale was able to listen to Julius's commentary and to hear the taped playback of portions of the barred and great-horned owl calls played at Koons Hall, Unity College. I remain uncertain that other calls made during the morning connected to the MIT server due to poor cell reception along the survey route.