Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/09/08
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Last night at about 2:00am our neighborhood hoot owl started making its territorial call. Despite the fact that we talk slower down here, I do indeed know that the 'hoot owl' is in fact the old local name for the strix varia - or probably, to be more precise, the strix varia georgica. You may know this by "Barred Owl", "Striped Owl", or if you live in France "Le Chat-huant du Nord". The territorial calls are loud, especially when your window is open to enjoy the early fall weather. It is even louder when the owl is in a tree beside that window. As an example, listen to this owl with your speakers turned way up: http://www.owlpages.com/_media_io2/strix/barred1.wav Around 4:00am or 5:00am the mating calls with a female hoot owl further away started: http://www.owlpages.com/_media_io2/strix/barred2.wav the female is the raspier voice, sort of flat sounding. While this was going on I kept having dream-like images of Doug Herr - well, this particular image: http://www.wildlightphoto.com/doug.jpg floating through my head. I also remember seeing this image: http://www.wildlightphoto.com/leica/400r68.jpg I don't know if I thought Doug might be in my back yard shooting the owl - or if I was thinking I should get a bigger lens to shoot said owl but I do remember waking up slowly (there was not a lot of good sleep to be had with all this going on) and trying to shake myself out of some odd space between home, nature, and the LUG. I need to take a nap. As much as I admire Doug's work, I am not sure I want to dream about some man I have never actually met. Sorry, Doug. Dave - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html