Bird ID from Call

hearny

Hello,
I am curious to know if anyone can identify this bird by sound.
The call can be heard every night from around 10 p.m. and can go on late through the night. I haven't heard it all during the day.
The call is very frequent and there is a much lower response (cant really be heard on the recording) from what would appear to be a distant nest as the call sounds like its a younger bird responding.

I live beside the river Suir about 1 mile from Waterford city centre.

My neighbours have seen what they called a bird of prey (was calles a kestrel and a falcon by 2 different neighbours) but couldn't give me an accurate description except to say the wing span was the size of a car.

I saw an Owl last week but it flew off before I could get a proper look at it, could the owl be making that call.

Call is recorded in mp3 or m4a

http://www.ekam.ie/images/Memo.mp3
or
http://www.ekam.ie/images/Memo.m4a

Any help would be greatly appreciated,
Hearny.

LostCovey

hearny wrote: »

Hello,
I am curious to know if anyone can identify this bird by sound.
The call can be heard every night from around 10 p.m. and can go on late through the night. I haven't heard it all during the day.
The call is very frequent and there is a much lower response (cant really be heard on the recording) from what would appear to be a distant nest as the call sounds like its a younger bird responding.

I live beside the river Suir about 1 mile from Waterford city centre.

My neighbours have seen what they called a bird of prey (was calles a kestrel and a falcon by 2 different neighbours) but couldn't give me an accurate description except to say the wing span was the size of a car.

I saw an Owl last week but it flew off before I could get a proper look at it, could the owl be making that call.

Call is recorded in mp3 or m4a

http://www.ekam.ie/images/Memo.mp3
or
http://www.ekam.ie/images/Memo.m4a

Any help would be greatly appreciated,
Hearny.

Hi hearny,

That is the begging call of Long-eared Owl chicks, which seem to have had good breeding season. They start making this sound in the nest, and continue after they fledge, as the parents continue to feed them nearby. They can be surprisingly hard to see as they call from cover and can be relatively wary. However, it sounds like you have also seen one. Some people compare it to the sound from a child's squeaky toy.

If a predator appears (e.g. cat or sparrowhawk, the calls tend to get louder and more frantic, so it is also used as an alarm call by the young birds..

Those recordings are really fantastic - professional quality - do you mind me asking how you made them?

LostCove

hearny

Hi LostCovey,

Thanks for your very detailed answer,
The call was recorded with the memo taker on an iphone, it was more than likely the close proximity of the bird that made the quality sound better. Its much louder when you actually hear it.

I took a look at http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/l/longearedowl/index.aspx and the owl looks very similar but it was lighter in colour. The sound according to that site sounds completely different.
Is it possible the call on that page is a male and the call Im hearing is a female or vice versa.

Regards,
Hearny.

stevensi

As LostCovey said they are juvenile Long eared owls...i came across a family of 4 of them in the Dublin the other week calling like that. No sign of the parent birds though but I didn't stick around too long as i didn't want to disturb them....

hearny

Thanks stevensi and Lostcovey,
I did a bit more research and found the call of the Long-Eared Owl chicks on another site and it sounds exactly like what I'm hearing.
The link with all of the sounds if you are interested is
http://www.owlpages.com/sounds.php

the Long-Eared Owl chick calls are:

http://www.owlpages.com/sounds/Asio-otus-5.mp3
and
http://www.owlpages.com/sounds/Asio-otus-6.mp3

Thanks again for all your help, I'm glad to know exactly what it is and I'm delighted I saw one too.
I forgot to mention that it was the middle of the day when I saw the owl which I though was even stranger.

Regards,
Gary.

LostCovey

hearny wrote: »

Thanks stevensi and Lostcovey,
I did a bit more research and found the call of the Long-Eared Owl chicks on another site and it sounds exactly like what I'm hearing.
The link with all of the sounds if you are interested is
http://www.owlpages.com/sounds.php

the Long-Eared Owl chick calls are:

http://www.owlpages.com/sounds/Asio-otus-5.mp3
and
http://www.owlpages.com/sounds/Asio-otus-6.mp3

Thanks again for all your help, I'm glad to know exactly what it is and I'm delighted I saw one too.
I forgot to mention that it was the middle of the day when I saw the owl which I though was even stranger.

Regards,
Gary.

Hi Gary,

The young are active in the middle of the day esp in the afternoon - I guess they get hungry as evening approaches!

The pale colour is typical. Even though they can fly, their heads & body remain covered in down for weeks after they leave the nest - very comical looking if you get a close look - but as stevensi said, it's best not to hang around, as it will stop the adults coming in to feed them.

LostCovey

LostCovey

PS some advert for the ol' iPhone isn't it!

LostCovey