On Mon, 26 Feb 1996 PAGODROMA at aol.com wrote:

> for somebody. What kind of owl (I assume it is an
> owl) would be flying around in the middle of the night, over typical
> Seattle-urban 'East Side' wooded hillsides uttering short screeches (~1 sec)
> at ~10-12 second intervals? Barn, great horned, screech, or something else?
> This is the Eastgate area.
>
> It sounds like a barn, though short and a little less raspy; a little soft
> for great horned though similar to those noises young birds make; and not
> sure what a screech might make in flight.

Richard,

Short-eared Owls have a short, raspy call that they give in flight. I
have heard in in Ontario and Massachusetts from owls hunting in the
evening and in the middle of the night. Your description sounds most like
that call, of all the owl calls I have heard. There was a good rendition
of this on the old Peterson bird songs tape (eastern- I don't know if it's
on the western tape, but probably).

Barn Owls have various shorter noises than their full-fledged screech, I
believe, though I haven't heard them personally.

Of course, the habitat sounds wrong for both those species (wooded), but
it's possible that an individual barn or short-eared might call while
"commuting" over your neighborhood. I have seen both short-ears and barn
owls leave a roost and head off over the horizon to hunting areas, flying
quite high up. I believe they may range quite far.

It seems too late to be hearing juvenile Great Horneds (I've heard them
into November, but not later. I can't speak for western screech-owls,
but the noise you describe would be surprising, to say the least, from
an eastern screech-owl.

Chris Hill
Everett, WA
cehill at u.washington.edu