Eastern Screech Owl

December 27 2012.  We had snow last night, quite a bit for us; last winter was so mild that it was something of a novelty.  I’d almost forgotten how a night of snow lays a blanket of silence over a neighbourhood.

With a breakfast meeting to go to, it was dark and still when I left the house. I dug a winding pathway to my way to my car and was contemplating how best to sweep it clear of snow without making the drifts in my small parking area any worse when I heard a Screech Owl’s tremolo call. Did I imagine it? No, because I heard it again moments later, I stopped what I was doing and listened, the third time it called I could pinpoint it to a large ash tree in a neighbour’s back yard.

Screech Owls’ calls are odd, not at all what you’d expect from an owl.  Click here for recordings of them courtesy of the Macaulay Library.  Among Canadian owls it’s only the larger species like Great Horned Owl, Barred Owl and Great Gray Owl that hoot in the classic sense, the smaller birds make a funny assortment of screeches, squeaks and whistles.

The Screech Owl has two main songs or calls, and I defer to Pete Dunne, who in his Essential Field Guide Companion describes bird songs and calls particularly well, and for the Screech Owl he says: “ The contact call sounds like a low mellow, gargled or trembling whistle, lasting two to four seconds, all on the same pitch; it may be loud or softly uttered, giving the impression that a bird no more than 10 20 feet away is much father away. Also makes a descending nasal whinny that is often (but not exclusively) used to assert territoriality.

Eastern Screech Owls are really quite common in urban areas; it’s just that you don’t see them very often.  I read somewhere that if you have enough trees in your neighbourhood to support gray squirrels; you have Screech Owls too.  They’re also fairly easily lured by imitations of their call; if you can figure out how to effect the burbling tremolo that is, but they’re not particularly amused by trickery; they sometimes literally hit back.

The pleasure of a today’s soft Screech Owl call in the fresh snow early dawn made it my Bird of the Day even before the day had really begun.

Eastern Screech Owl basking in late November sunshine
Eastern Screech Owl basking in late November sunshine

2 thoughts on “Eastern Screech Owl”

  1. Peter
    Enjoyed your tale of the screech owl, you may have solved my question on what bird takes its night in one of my conifers.
    A question for you. I will be heading to the Mayan Riviera (Mexico) then onto Oaxaca, Mexico later this month. Can you recommend a good bird guide for this area?

    1. Thanks.
      I was given a copy of Birds of Mexico and Central America by Ber van Perlo, published by Princeton University Press. I’m told it is the bible for visiting birders. It’s about $30.
      Another great source is to go to the Birdingpal website

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