I've been entertained for the past several weeks now, all winter actually,
with a pair of Barred Owls hanging out here in the yard and ranging over
to the evergreen wooded Eastgate Park a couple blocks away. All of this
week so far, they have really been cranking it out! Sometimes, they're chatty
and sit in the same tree near one another, one bird calling, the other
responding, but most often, it's just one bird calling. Off and on all night
long, every single night & early morning. Even when it was raining a few
nights ago, they weren't to be deterred. When they are in the yard and in
the big Douglas Fir next to the house, the calls blast right through the
walls as to be almost disruptive, ...but I can live with it. One just
concluded session this evening just outside the window a few feet away which
lasted about 25 minutes nonstop, I timed and recorded the call rate with my
watch. For 14 minutes, 23 calls (the familiar "who-who, hoo-hoo,
who-who-are-you") were logged and the rate was calculated at an average of 37.0 seconds
between calls. The range was from 24 to 54 seconds with both of those
extremes being very much extremes at both ends of the spectrum. Throw both
of those out and the call rate would have been once every 33.8 seconds.

Richard Rowlett
Bellevue (Eastgate), WA