Well, I live close enough to the Zoo to try to investigate a little tonight.
As a couple of the Zoo folks have already said, I'd agree Cooper's
Hawk is the correct id on these birds. I couldn't go into the zoo
since it was after closing time, but from the west entrance you can
get a good view of the Zoo Tunes area: Around 7:30, a series of calls
started to ring out -- I only got one brief view of a raptor, but the
calls continued, obviously from multiple [2 or 3] birds, for the 20
minutes I sat there.

On listening to my cds afterwards, it seems to me to clearly match
the calls on the Cornell tapes listed as 'juvenile solicitation
calls' -- 'spEEEEow, spEEEEow spEEEow' is the transliteration they
give that fit pretty solidly. Nothing on the Northern Harrier
recordings came close.

Not a bad way to spend a bit of evening ---

Matt Bartels
Seattle, WA

>At ZooTunes Sunday night - I was digging Herbie Hancock getting
>funky with Watermelon Man, but he had stiff competition in the
>antics of several Northern Harriers swooping back and forth across
>the North Meadow. They were present, in and out of the trees and
>flying fairly low over the crowd for at least a couple of hours. At
>points, their near-constant vocalizing was louder than the music! I
>don't know what prey they might have been eyeing - someone's picnic,
>or a very small child?
>
>It reminded me of a Little League game I attended recently, during
>which a pair of Osprey repeatedly brought prey to their nestlings
>cozily ensconsed atop one of the field's light standards. I was
>pretty excited, but very few others seemed interested (despite my
>pointing and exclamations)...
>
>Debbie McLeod
>Kirkland
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