Did my wife Sally and I hear a boreal owl in our neighborhood S.W. of
Snohomish early Saturday morning, 5/31? Sometime between 2am and 3am
Saturday morning, Sally woke me up from a light sleep to ask me if I heard
an owl. I had indeed. The owl emitted a series of nine to eleven evenly
spaced whistled notes all on the same pitch with a duration of 2 to 3
seconds. This was followed by a 2-3 second pause then the whistled series
was repeated. This pattern, about 10 series per minute, continued
incessantly for at least 45 minutes, when I fell asleep. I regret that I
didn't grab my flashlight and binocs and try to locate the bird, but I
thought at first that the bird was probably a screech owl with an abberant
call. Today I located my owl tapes (Western Peterson and National
Geographic), and listened to all owl recordings. Sally and I agree that
the sounded exactly like boreal owl recording on the National Geographic
Tape. Did we hear a boreal owl in this very unlikely location or could
some birder have been playing a tape loop of boreal owl in this
neighborhood? Does anyone know how long boreal owls call? Could it be 45
minutes or more? I receive only the digest at this time, So you may reply
mto me directly if you wish.

Greg Toffic
gtoffic at halcyon.com