Subject: Bird names, and Pygmy owl calls
Date: Oct 27 09:18:00 1998
From: Tom Besser - tbesser at vetmed.wsu.edu


I've enjoyed the typically excellent discussion on Tweeters about this
thread, but I have the nagging suspicion that the original poster may
actually have been asking why in trip reports and bird hotline
transcripts people use all caps to highlight the birds being seen, as in
"We saw six RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH in a shrub" (hope I used the hyphen
correctly).

On another note, I have been hearing a NORTHERN PYGMY OWL regularly in
my yard lately, (and seeing it occasionally). The call sounds just like
my birder friends use to call dickey birds: tootootootootootootootoo
<pause> too <pause> too <pause> too.

It's actually amazingly loud for such a little guy, and has raised the
question in my mind of what function the call serves for the owl.
Territorial marking? Pair bonding? Prey attraction?

I haven't had much experience with the species, but I seem to remember
more often hearing them in the springtime giving widely spaced
individual 'too' calls rather than the longer sequence.

Tom Besser
Moscow ID
besser at turbonet.com