Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 12:57:33 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Steve Huy Subject: Re: saw-whets (behavior question) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To add to Dave Brinker's comments; While we normally have vocal responses to the audio lures used in our banding efforts we usually do not hear much in the way of "unsolicited" vocalizations. There is a sort of chirping call that seems to be a warning as I associate it with a startled owl flying away. I sometimes hear this when walking to my nets to open. This year I have heard saw-whets wailing, whining and chirping at times before I would even start my lure in the evenings. I find this to be unusual in my experience (considerably less than Dave's). I have also been hearing tooting frequently when the lure is on. I have only heard this response to the lure in Winter on Assateague, never at other sites or in the Autumn. The tooting is usually not full volume and sometimes a bit faster than normal, but will lapse into periods of the normal tooting sound. I would be surprised to find the banding operation still under way at the Sods. They usually give up in early October. As far as I know I was the only one to try for owls and that was in August. I'm glad you got to observe this seldom seen resident of the Sods. Steve Huy ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================