Video: Female Barred Owl Vocalizing to Mate

A female Barred Owl leaves the nest for ten minutes to vocalize to her mate. Filmed in Ottawa, Ontario on May 1, 2014.

The Barred Owl’s hooting call, “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?” is a classic sound of old forests and treed swamps. But this attractive owl, with soulful brown eyes and brown-and-white-striped plumage, can also pass completely unnoticed as it flies noiselessly through the dense canopy or snoozes on a tree limb. Originally a bird of the east, during the twentieth century it spread through the Pacific Northwest and southward into California.

For more information about the Barred Owl, see Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Male and female barred owls

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