On Thu, 6 Mar 1997, Cindy McCormack wrote:

>
> I would like to question the need for "hooting" for owls, especially
> this time of year. I realize that some birders are more responsible
> than others, but I believe that it can be very stressing to the owls
> while they are establishing territories, courting and nesting. Your
> tapes can be conceived as a rival, competitor, or a danger. I know
> that some places have laws prohibiting the use of tapes for that
> reason.
> Also, playing the 'small' owl tapes could not only bring in the 'small'
> owl, but also a larger owl which may kill the smaller owl you brought
> in!
> Ethically, I think birders should strive to practice low-impact
> birding as much as possible. Let the "real" owls do the hooting this
> time of year. Besides, I have always enjoyed my owl 'finds' much
> more when I found them by sight, rather than by enticing them to
> reveal themselves!
>
> Cindy McCormack
> Spokane, WA
> cbirds at mt.arias.net

Good points, Cindy. However, I would bet that if you pick a country road
at random, twenty miles from Seattle, you will be the only birder to play
a tape there (or hoot there) this year, and probably this decade.

Where I used to bird in Western Massachusetts, birders were much more avid
about owling than here in the Pacific No..... I mean in Cascadia,
probably because there are not that many other interesting birds in New
England in winter. But even with lots of active owlers around, I was only
aware of one site where birds were "harassed" by tape in the way that you
were warning against. It was a site where Saw-whet Owls were quite
responsive, and probably 20 people independently played tapes there that
winter. One person visited the spot about weekly. The ironic thing is
that if the birders had gone to almost any similar spot (same habitat and
elevation) for hundreds of square miles around they would have had about
the same chance of attracting a Saw-whet. Saw-whets were perceived as
rare, so when one spot became "the Saw-whet spot," that led to lots of
playback there.

I believe the same situation exists here - Barred Owls are around, and not
too hard to find if you know where to look. I was trying to steer
tweeters readers to find their own, and thus steer the attention away from
urban parks, where there is quite real possibility of harrassment, to the
boondocks where the chances of two people independently playing tapes to
the same owl are miniscule.

And personally, I like hearing owls even more than seeing them :)

Incidentally, there were Saw-whets present at that spot I mentioned, even
after all the playback, and they stayed through the breeding season, so
they presumably nested.

I realize that playback is a tricky ethical issue for birders, and I
personally try to limit my impact by visiting the same spot at most twice
in a given year, and by avoiding places where other people tell me there
are owls (If I've heard about it, the birds have heard playback already
from someone). However, the birds face real rivals that are more of
a problem than the imaginary rivals that playback imitates. I think, as
long as it is an occasional and not a constant event, that playback is no
more harmful than pishing, or feeding birds, or many other relatively
benign ways we use to get closer to birds.

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