[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Great Horned Owls courting



At 03:30 PM 12/2/99 -0500, you wrote:

>Great! I love a lively discussion! I was not aware that GHO's courted in the
>winter, but I am glad to learn. However, the GHO that I called in to range of
>my head lamp was say ing something like hoo hoo-hoo HOO wow. The BO says who
>cooks for YOU, who cooks for YOUuuuuuuall! (Called them in too, once on top of
>a bunch of campers in a campfire circle, where they terrified the campers with
>"monkey chatter.)
>
>
>--
>Alex Netherton

AHA!  Then we may be describing *dialect* differences.  The Great Horned 
Owls in my neighborhood (Orange County in the piedmont of central North 
Carolina) say something like:

HOO HOO HOO hoo-hoo-hoo (slight pause) HOO HOO

If the first three HOOs were half notes, the hoo-hoo-hoos would be quarter 
or eighth notes, and the final two HOOs would be whole notes.  (I am basing 
this on music notation learned in grade school, so don't be too 
critical.)  The males and females produce this same series, but the females 
have deeper voices.

I would not be at all surprised to hear a different dialect in the NC 
mountains.

Norm

*******************************************************************
Norman Budnitz			919-684-3592 (day)
nbudnitz@duke.edu		919-383-0553 (eve)
				919-684-6168 (fax)

Dept of Zoology, Duke Univ, Box 90325, Durham NC 27708-0325 (work)	
4115 Garrett Drive, Durham NC 27705-8005 (home)

PROGRESS: the victory of laughter over dogma.
(Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas)