Photograph by Steve Hedderton.
Megascops asio -- Eastern screech owl, Middletown, New York.
9 Comments
Paul Burnett · 23 April 2012
One night a screech owl serenaded us from the porch railing of our summer home in the Virginia woods. It didn't sound like a hoot-owl at all, but like some large animal was being killed. It was an astonishing amount of sound to come from such a small creature - they're only about 6 or 8 inches tall.
harold · 23 April 2012
Paul Burnett said:
One night a screech owl serenaded us from the porch railing of our summer home in the Virginia woods. It didn't sound like a hoot-owl at all, but like some large animal was being killed. It was an astonishing amount of sound to come from such a small creature - they're only about 6 or 8 inches tall.
And they're actually considerably smaller than they look, because they have so much downy plumage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Strix_nebulosa_plumage.jpg (not a picture of a screech owl but the principle would be similar).
apokryltaros · 23 April 2012
Paul Burnett said:
One night a screech owl serenaded us from the porch railing of our summer home in the Virginia woods. It didn't sound like a hoot-owl at all, but like some large animal was being killed. It was an astonishing amount of sound to come from such a small creature - they're only about 6 or 8 inches tall.
The Aztecs had a superstition that to hear and see a screech owl is to foretell one's own death. Probably stemming from the idea that it's better to die than to try sleeping near it while it sings.
KlausH · 23 April 2012
Show us your hooters!
apokryltaros · 23 April 2012
KlausH said:
Show us your hooters!
Wrong genus.
lijdare · 24 April 2012
I was 14 the first time I heard one. My dad and I had been in our woods cutting grape and Virginia creeper vines off of trees we grew for lumber and hunting mushrooms as we went along. At twilight we had just reached the pickup on the road when one of those things let go with a shreak that sounded to me like a woman who gave up her life - on top of giving me a chill to the bone. Dad was unphased and after letting me stew in my fear for a while finally explained to me it was a screech owl.
It didn't help that night that we as we drove away a bobcat (another first for me - and dad) ran in front of the truck's headlights. And then as we broke out of the woods I swear I saw an white 'apparition' in the second story of an abandoned 1880s farmhouse in a neighbor's field. Okay, maybe I went only 2 for 3.
harold · 24 April 2012
apokryltaros said:
Paul Burnett said:
One night a screech owl serenaded us from the porch railing of our summer home in the Virginia woods. It didn't sound like a hoot-owl at all, but like some large animal was being killed. It was an astonishing amount of sound to come from such a small creature - they're only about 6 or 8 inches tall.
The Aztecs had a superstition that to hear and see a screech owl is to foretell one's own death. Probably stemming from the idea that it's better to die than to try sleeping near it while it sings.
That's no superstition. It's a scientific fact that everyone who has ever heard a screech owl has eventually died.
Jay · 27 April 2012
What a beautiful Owl! and What a beautiful God's design!! I don't think that such great Owl's design is just result of accident combination with energy and matter. I admit the microevolution which is variation within prescribed limits of complexity, quantitative variation of already existing organs or structures. but it is irrational that some animals and human being is from Macroevolution, the large-scale innovation, the coming into existence of new organs, structures, body-plans of qualitatively new genetic material.
Matt Young · 27 April 2012
Pls do not feed this new troll; it has said nothing we have not heard before and dispensed with.
9 Comments
Paul Burnett · 23 April 2012
One night a screech owl serenaded us from the porch railing of our summer home in the Virginia woods. It didn't sound like a hoot-owl at all, but like some large animal was being killed. It was an astonishing amount of sound to come from such a small creature - they're only about 6 or 8 inches tall.
harold · 23 April 2012
apokryltaros · 23 April 2012
KlausH · 23 April 2012
Show us your hooters!
apokryltaros · 23 April 2012
lijdare · 24 April 2012
I was 14 the first time I heard one. My dad and I had been in our woods cutting grape and Virginia creeper vines off of trees we grew for lumber and hunting mushrooms as we went along. At twilight we had just reached the pickup on the road when one of those things let go with a shreak that sounded to me like a woman who gave up her life - on top of giving me a chill to the bone. Dad was unphased and after letting me stew in my fear for a while finally explained to me it was a screech owl.
It didn't help that night that we as we drove away a bobcat (another first for me - and dad) ran in front of the truck's headlights. And then as we broke out of the woods I swear I saw an white 'apparition' in the second story of an abandoned 1880s farmhouse in a neighbor's field. Okay, maybe I went only 2 for 3.
harold · 24 April 2012
Jay · 27 April 2012
What a beautiful Owl! and What a beautiful God's design!! I don't think that such great Owl's design is just result of accident combination with energy and matter. I admit the microevolution which is variation within prescribed limits of complexity, quantitative variation of already existing organs or structures. but it is irrational that some animals and human being is from Macroevolution, the large-scale innovation, the coming into existence of new organs, structures, body-plans of qualitatively new genetic material.
Matt Young · 27 April 2012
Pls do not feed this new troll; it has said nothing we have not heard before and dispensed with.