(Pages have changed: FZ30 camera stuff is now in the Equipment section here.)

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1 September 2006

The local couple of owls at my family's home seem to have got wise to Sophie, and at about 5.40 this morning they came to have a good old chat. The reason for this entry here is that it gave me the opportunity to record a series of "hoots" Sophie made in response to the male, who she listens to and then imitates very precisely. The short excerpt below starts with some kewicks, then a sort of hoot, after which she scrambles onto my shoulder. There follow three of her attempts at hoots picked at random from a series of 11, made at intervals of about 30 seconds. I've put them up as I haven't heard a female version of the tawny hoot anywhere on the internet or on cds. It has nothing of the volume of the full male hoot and is made with a rather different voice, but it's very charming. I've not heard a wild female doing one yet. Sophie does them frequently. The day she does a real hoot she's a boy. . . !

Sophie hooting (1018.89 K) 1 Mb mp3, 160 kb/s, 52 seconds, recorded with Rode NT1-A mics.

I wish I had a video of her flying around in great excitment as I prepared this sample, repeatedly jumping from her window ledge onto the recorder, the speakers or my shoulder and hooting away all the while. She clearly likes the sound of her own voice, especially when doing these hoots. When she does them she crouches slightly and raises all the feathers on her head and body, unlike when she kewicks, which she does in an upright posture without any feathers raised. And to make all her calls she parts her beak just a little, just enough to let the breath out.

Here for comparison is the hoot made by a male -- the dominant male who with his wife owns the lower half of Stumble wood (and who can be heard having a scrap with a juvenile male here (1018.88 K)). The excerpt below has three hoots. Each is spread over about 8 seconds, starting with the first hoo, then a long pause, and then the closing hoo-hoooo. It's a different and louder sound altogether, carrying for hundreds of yards. In the second and third calls you can hear the juvenile who he's moving off his territory.

Male tawny hoots (652.05 K) 650 kb mp3, 160 kb/s, 32 seconds, recorded November 2005 with Telinga + dish.

Sophie listening intently to the visiting owls. The recording gear is running behind her. The window's pulled to for this pic session -- we had it more open during the main part of the owl visit. Right: In thoughtful mood afterwards.

The recording setup, with (left) Sophie still al the window, and (right) inspecting the HHB Portadisc recorder. The Xclef recorder is nothing to do with the recording -- just me listening to the early morning news on the radio. For the previous few nights I'd had the Portadisc in standby mode to catch the calls she makes from time to time during the night, especially when the owls turn up.

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