Subject: [Tweeters] Re: Western Screech Owl, perhaps
Date: Aug 31 14:36:19 2017
From: Stewart Wechsler - ecostewart at gmail.com


Carol,

It is so nice to get your confirmation that the Screech Owls are back in
Lincoln Park! Something like 15 years ago, not long after the Barred Owls
apparently arrived in the park, a friend questioned me about a photo she
took of a juvenile Barred Owl finishing off some prey item, with it's leg
hanging out of its mouth. It had feathers down to the claws (talons) and
was grey, and the size of a screech owl leg. I told her it was a Screech
Owl. I hadn't heard or seen any Screech Owls in the park since then (or
gotten any of the reports that people used to give me). Then over the last
few months, 2 times, I found a feather of, what I have been pretty sure,
was a Western Screech Owl. I still wanted more of a confirmation, and you
gave it to me! Now I hope it is evidence that they are adapting to life
with our new immigrant Barred Owl, as their eastern cousins are adapted to
them in the east.

On a related note, I was pleased to see a Barred Owl yesterday afternoon,
in Lincoln Park, perched on a branch, right over a major trail. I stopped
to enjoy it for a moment, then decided that it knows that that is a trail
that humans use a lot, so I shouldn't hesitate to walk under it, as long as
I didn't act like I was trying to get closer to it. So I walked under it,
looking at the ground, and at its shadow further down the trail, and was
pleased to see first that the shadow was still there (though with its head
and body a bit stretched out and elongated), then turning to see that I
indeed hadn't disturbed the owl, and that that was indeed the owl's shadow,
not the shadow of some odd cut-out stretched version of the owl.

-Stewart
206 932-7225 (currently only land)
www.stewardshipadventures.com

>
> 4. Western Screech Owl, perhaps (Tom and Carol Stoner)
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2017 21:17:44 -0700
> From: Tom and Carol Stoner <tcstonefam at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Tweeters] Western Screech Owl, perhaps
> To: Tweeters at u.washington.edu
> Message-ID:
> <CAOVv5Lx_M=TsTb0EpfzK_BXvyTpMqcrv7N1pzNBVjWsOYPJvhw at
> mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Wednesday evening at 9:00 I heard an odd call from an area east of the
> north end of Lincoln Park. My first thought was Barred Owl, but the call I
> heard was not "who cooks for you?" The unfamiliar call eventually segued
> into the bouncing ball notes of a Western Screech Owl. When I checked
> Xeno-Cantu, the initial call matched the "barking call" of a Western
> Screech Owl. Are there any other possibilities?
>
> Carol Stoner