Don Baccus asks

>So what evidence did your tormentor provide when he told you it was
>a long-eared?
>

I will include the bulk of the message that was sent to me:

"Without a book to look at I can't tell you anything definitive. The
coloration definitely looks like a long-eared to me. Especially the facial
disks. Also, the heavy dark breasts streaking and the amount of barring on
the underside of the wings seem like long-eared to me. The tail is more
heavily banded like a short-eared however.
As far as where it was seen, Long-ears hunt primarily in open
country like short-ears. But they typically nest and roost in forests or
stands of trees.
This would be an interesting question to pose to Tweeters. I
don't have access to post however. I would suggest that you post the URL of
the picture and ask for comments. I would be interested to see what people
think. I may have spoke too soon, but everything about the bird just says
long-eared owl to me."


So far what I have learned is that I was too quick to call the bird before.
I should have asked a lot more questions while it was in the field. As
somebody else indicated the reason why a lot of Long-earred Owls aren't
reported is that they aren't correctly identified. Which is not to say that
I think that this is a Long-earred. But it is getting harder to call it a
Short-earred. But I would hate to just call it Asio sp.

Jim

Jim Rosso
Issaquah, Washington
425-392-8440
jrosso at mediaseek.com