[Tweeters] Calling Barred Owls

[Tom Benedict via Tweeters]

It’s been a few years, but I’ve heard the diagnostic ‘bouncing ball’ call of the WESO at our home in Seahurst, WA a couple of times. Otherwise mostly BDOW hooting. 

As far as the plan to kill 450,000 of them to ’save’ the SPOW goes, I gotta confess it makes no sense to me at all. Will be be doing the same things in a few years to ANHU to ’save’ RUHU?

Tom Benedict
Seahurst, WA


> On Jul 16, 2024, at 15:16, Joshua Hayes via Tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu> wrote:

> 

> Sent with Proton Mail secure email.

> 

> Former academic ecologist here, and I'll confirm Dennis's notes on the distinction between invasive and expanding range. We have a resident barred owl in our tiny little park here in Licton Springs (my son has an eerie ability to find it during the day; probably just his 27-year-old eyes compared to my 63-year-old ones). I'd also note that we have at least occasional saw-whet owls over on the North Seattle College campus, something I'd have been dubious about except that that same son recovered a dead saw-whet over there in the last couple of years, which we then donated to the Burke. But I've never heard a screech owl in Seattle, it's true.

> 

> Josh Hayes

> Joshuaahayes at proton.me

> Dennis Paulson writes:

> 

>> Mike, they are thrilling to hear and see. We live above Thornton Creek, where there is a nesting pair, and we hear them from time to time and have seen them in our yard a few times. They seem to be the only owl species in the neighborhood.

>> 

>> But I wanted to note that they are not an invasive species. An invasive species is one that humans have transported out of its normal range and, often unfortunately, does very well in its new location at the expense of other species.

>> 

>> Barred Owls, on the other hand, expanded their range naturally across the Rockies and then down the Pacific states. The only thing we had to do with that probably involves the habitat changes that we have made over time that facilitated the owl?s expansion.