It was a cold night, and the house was locked up tight. Yet, the call of this owl woke me at 3 am – as loud as if I had the windows open. I lay there and listened for five minutes or so and when sleep eluded me, I opened a window and recorded the sound. Just as I talked myself into going outside to see if I could spot him, silence reigned.
The period between the calls is shortened – it was 30 to 50 seconds between calls. A wonderous way to wake.
AWESOME!!! One morning at school about 7:00 am I heard a barred owl. “Who cooks for you?”
I just giggled. “I do, I’m the lunch lady.”
Love it! Meet a delightful awakening, even at three a.m.
We had a barred owl in our backyard in downtown Wichita (apparently they’re adopting old neighborhoods, since 50- to 80-year-old elms and such count as “old-growth forest.” It got relocated after it flipped out at a game at the nearby stadium: http://articles.kwch.com/2010-08-06/owl_24081647 which was kind of disappointing – though I have to wonder if it wasn’t lonely here. Far as I could tell, I only ever heard one bird.
Now that we’ve moved to the edge of the Pine Barrens, I have a pair of great horned owls as neighbors. They were doing a textbook (where the “textbook” is Cornell’s All About Birds site) case of “territorial duet hooting” a couple nights ago, so that was cool.