Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2002 21:56:41 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Janet Millenson Subject: Re: Great Horned Owls in Odenton (+ other owls) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dave Mozurkewich writes, "The lower pitched [Great Horned Owl] is the female." Makes sense; she's bigger. Based on a recent observation, I think this is also true for Screech Owls. Recently I'd heard a Screech Owl's monotone trill coming late at night from evergreens near a certain tree cavity. Presumably it was Rusty, the beautiful red-morph owl we discovered in that tree cavity a couple of months ago. Then a couple of days ago a DIFFERENT Screech Owl was sitting at the entrance to Rusty's roost! This bird was much smaller, whiter, and not as good-looking. As it got dark, he started calling (right in front of us) and it was much higher-pitched than what we'd heard previously. A minute or two later the second owl flew up to him. Well, I rushed right out to the Wild Bird Center and splurged on a nest box to encourage Rusty and Whitey to do their Atlas-worthy thing. If anyone has any tips on where to put it up -- south-facing? near other trees? -- and knows whether such nest boxes actually get used by their intended species (vs. squirrels or starlings), please contact me directly. Thanks. Janet Millenson Potomac, MD janet@twocrows.com --------------------------------------------------- "Look at the birds!" -- Pascal the parrot ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================