Dennis:
>PYgmy owls are also more common than most people think. In September and Oct
>ober, I can almost invariably call one in in conifer forests east of the
>CaScades. I guess they are dispersing to their winter territories at that time
>and are very responsive to vocalizations. I have had 3 come in at the same time
>once, and two several times.

I'd have to agree with this. If you get out into the forests in spring
often hear a pygmy calling. I ran the count (half-heartedly) on a very
rainy day at Cape Flattery this spring, had a pygmy calling from a tree
about 50 feet from me off and on all morning. When I've ran Audubon
trips out to Klamath Falls in the winter we've stumbled across them
on perhaps 50% of the trips, though they really aren't a serious target of
those trips. We just run up into Lava Beds N.M. and see if we can find
one perched - unless there's one at refuge HQ.

I could go on with such examples.

Sawhets, on the other hand, I've rarely seen or heard, though I think they
are quite common. We had a pair attempt to nest at the PAS sanctuary
a few years ago, and they're heard there often. I rarely hear them for
a simple reason: I'm rarely on our sanctuary at night!

>But overall I agree, it takes a lot to find owls.

But the effort can be well rewarded. I know biologists in the Blue
Mountains were finding tons of flamulated owls, for instance, when
doing night-time transects several years ago. I learned this when
I led a small Audubon group out there with the goal of seeing
great gray and flamulated owls, thinking the latter would be
difficult. A biologist met us and introduced us to a great gray
owl and chicks, and told us to "just run up the hill and play
your tape" to get flamulated. They found 90 pair on one evening
doing transects! Amazing. We went to a second great gray owl
site, and found a flam within perhaps a half hour - an immediate
response but it took a while to track it down because their
call is soft and hard to pin down to direction and distance.
We also saw a barred at the same site, all three within perhaps
an hour and within a couple hundred feet of each other. Climbing
a hilltop, we were able to get responses from two or three other
pair of flam, all sounding far, far away but given the softness of the
call probably within 1/4 mile or so of us.

So, for our small species of owls, at least, I think they're really
quite common but just take effort to scare up, during darkness and
in some cases somewhat remote terrain if your a westsider (i.e. for
piney flams).

>I have a lot more sympathy now for the people who have to use clunky mail
>programs, as I have been sweating over vax mail for the past week.

Hey, don't knock it. It's clunky, but I had vax e-mail in the late 70's
back when you folks were still lickin' (15 cent?) stamps!

- Don Baccus, Portland OR <donb at rational.com>