Unknown bird night call

[Carma Sue Henry]

Made this recording tonight about 9:30 - 9:40 PM.  We've heard similar calls but never this many or so clearly.  No wind and the crickets are still mostly silent.  Best of all no traffic noise from Pettibone or the train tracks.  It sounded as if two were calling back and forth nearby (about 100 ft) with a possible third further off.  It's now an hour later and they're still going.

I checked through the night calls of Nighthawks and Swifts and couldn't find a match.  The only other online reference I could find is night calling of the Brown-headed nuthatch (no recording of that and their daytime call is little squeaks) of the Southeast. That made me wonder if our White-breasted Nuthatch calls at night, although I found no reference to that.  It's not quite the nasal 'yank' of the WBN; more of a 'pewhyou'.  Another sound is showing up on the graph but I can't hear it due to some minor hearing lose from a long ago high fever.  I only lost a very small range but whatever that other sound is, it's lost on me.  Steve thought it was not the same bird.

We've seen a female Flicker feeding a new youngster the last couple of days, and some new Downy Woodpeckers. 

Today, an adult male Spotted Towhee with a very bad eye distortion that looks like the Finch eye disease was on the patio, not looking at all well.  About a week ago I saw a Purple Finch whose eyes looked good but had severely nodular swollen feet.  It was still able to perch.  Is there anyone local who tracks diseases in wild birds and should be informed?

Carma Henry

Logsden Ridge

[Jamie S.]

Didn't sound familiar to me, so I ran it through Merlin. It says Great Horned Owl. It's a match for their recording of their begging call.

Jamie Simmons

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[Joel Geier]

Yes, it sounds like the begging calls of juvenile Great Horned Owls. They can be quite incessant, around this time of year (the later part of summer), if you had a successful owl nest nearby.

It's a grating, raspy call vaguely similar to the screech of Barn Owls. But -- unlike with Barn Owls where the source of the call moves around constantly while the owl is hunting -- these juvenile Great Horned Owl calls usually come from fixed perches, where the juveniles are waiting for a parent to bring them something freshly dead to eat.

I sometimes wonder how the parents manage to hunt, while being pestered so constantly.

The other situation in which you might hear this call is in the winter months, when female Great Horned Owls make similar begging calls as part of courtship.

Joel Geier

Tampico Ridge north of Corvallis

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From: "Mid-Valley Nature" <mid-vall...@googlegroups.com>
To: "Mid-Valley Nature" <mid-vall...@googlegroups.com>, "Carma Sue Henry" <csh...@bywordofmind.com>
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2023 11:14:33 PM
Subject: Re: [MidValleyNature:7187] Unknown bird night call

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mid-valley-nature/2100973670.175913.1690870473697%40mail.yahoo.com.