Subject: RE: Saw-Whet Owl (vs. Northern Pygmy Owl)
Date: Apr 9 07:17:34 1997
From: Mike Patterson - mpatters at orednet.org





>
>The recordings that I have ( Thayer's Birds of NA, Peterson NA Birds, =
>and Cornell's Western Bird Songs) don't show much difference in the =
>"tooting" call of the Saw-whet versus the Pygmy. The Pygmies I hear =
>around here, however, give a much slower series of toots than any of the =
>recordings. The speed of toots seemed to increase as nesting time =
>approach, as did the length of time spent tooting. The only slow tooting =
>recording I've heard was made by a local birder out of Nelson(Birds of =
>the Kootenays by John Neville). Can any one comment?
>
>Thanks
>Gail Spitler
>Johnsons Landing, BC
>gspitler at awinc.com
>

Part of the problem with the description of small owl vocalization (at least
from my perspective) is our perception of "tooting" (and when we immitate owls
we whistle).
Saw-whet, Pygmy and Screech Owls vocalize. They do not whistle or toot in the
acoustical sense. As a consequence, I think most non-owl listeners do not
hear the difference in quality of the vocalizations.

When I hear pygmy owls I hear "bop, bop, bop, bop..." always regularly
spaced and uniform independent of the time between phrases. Saw-whet produces
more erratic vocalizations, "zoop, zoop, zoop..." Saw-whet will also regularly
produce a double, "zoo-zoop, zoo-zoop..."


--
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