Tweets:

As most of you know, due to their range expansion westward and apparent
competition with Spotted Owls, Barred Owls have become a management issue
relative to Spotted Owls. A colleague in the USFWS and I are working on / well into
a monograph as to the possible reasons for this expansion and are mapping
the expansion through time. To date, for Washington we have assembled most of
the Barred Owl records associated with Spotted Owls surveys and a number of
records from birders (M&M Denney et al.), but we are trying to fill in as
fully as possible. In the vein of recent threads on Turkey Vultures, Sandhill
Cranes, long-billed syndrome, etc., we are hoping to tap into the collective
observations and synergy of the Tweeters membership. If any of you have
systematic records we could use to document Barred Owl expansion and
distribution, we would be very appreciative. We are particularly interested in older
records (70's-80's), records from urban areas (city parks, etc.), records for
rehabilitation birds (Dr. Erik Stauber, WSU Vet School, provided some excellent
documentation for se WA / Idaho via rehab intake records), records from
lowland western Washington, the Okanogan, Blue Mountains and other areas outside
of Spotted Owl range, etc.

If you have Barred Owl records you would be willing to contribute, the
following information is necessary for us to accurately document and map the
record(s):

1) Date
2) Observer
3) Location - as precise as possible. Please include some physical
description (park name, street address, city, etc.) and a coordinate location. We
can deal with Township, Range, Section, 1/4-1/16; UTM with Zone/NAD; decimal
degrees, or Lat-Long.
4) Type of observation: nest, pair, single, young.

In addition to WA records, we have assembled Barred Owl observations for a
number of western states and Canadian provinces, so any western records are
useful. Lastly, we will gratefully and appropriately acknowledge all
contributions.

Thanks! Looking forward to your collective effort!

Tracy L. Fleming
Vancouver, WA