Do you like this for a Barn owl? Central North Carolina, US (1 Viewer)

[tazer72]

Good morning,

After hearing a Barn Owl in my area last month I've set up some microphones at home to try and detect one. Lots of interesting noises out there at night, most unidentifiable. I did get a Great Horned Owl, a couple of Barred Owls, and a possible Eastern Screech-Owl recently. Last night the mics picked up this screech:

Barn Owl (Tyto alba)

Barn Owl in March 2024 by Mark Montazer

www.inaturalist.org

I think the waveform looks good for Barn. Pretty monotone, wide spectrum (1800kHz to 8000+kHz), very static-y, not much banding. The only thing that gives me any pause is that gap in the call. It called once on the NE side of my house then very distantly called again 60s later on the NW side of my house (I've got 2 mics setup). So it was, seemingly, traveling from the direction of a nearby beaver pond to a nearby agricultural field (both within a mile).

Curious to hear your thoughts.

Thanks,
Mark

 

[birdmeister]

I'm definitely not an expert in nocturnal call ID, but in relation to other owls I think this sounds good for Barn (for the reasons you've mentioned above). Any other alternatives would be a non-avian species, I'm guessing.

 

[rkj]

Sounds like a Barn Owl to me.

 

[tazer72]

Thanks all. I've gotten positive feedback for Barn Owl on iNat as well. Just wanted to run it by a few folks before putting it into eBird.