Fellow Birders, Officially, the moon tonight (February 9th) will be considered "full". There's debate about whether moon phase influences calling frequency for owls but it may factor in at some level (moon phase is definitely correlated with calling frequency in certain nightjar species). This coupled with the recent warming temperatures may create great conditions that will encourage owls to start calling more frequently. If you're hearing owls calling right now, the Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas II would love to hear about your observations. If you're not already participating in the Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas, please contact us off list by email/phone (contact info below) and give us details about your observations (species, exact location, date) and we'll include your records in the Atlas database. If you don't have the time to venture out into your blocks tonight or in nights to come, you may want to consider simply listening from your properties. Great Horned Owls are certainly "urban" birds. Barred Owls can also acclimate to urban settings. Neighborhoods with older trees and nearby wooded areas could easily attract nesting Great Horned Owls. Look and listen for Barred Owls with forested areas near riparian zones. What owls should we be focusing our attention on right now? 1. Great Horned Owl - we're already receiving reports of female Great Horneds incubating on nests. This species is actively calling right now and may be more difficult to detect as the season progresses (safe dates started February 1st). 2. Barred Owl - we're now in active safe dates for Barred Owls too (started on February 1st). We have received at least one report of a Barred Owl investigating a nesting box. [aggressive to call playback] 3. Eastern Screech-Owl - safe dates don't begin until April 1st but screech-owls could be advertising territories/nest cavities right now. Their trills heard during this time of year can be coded with the 'T1' breeding evidence code. [aggressive to call playback] An excerpt from the Birds of North America states: "The Monotonic Trill is a pair and family-contact song, variously called Bounce, Tremolo, Secondary Song, Warble. It is mostly on a single pitch, 3-6 s long, but may rise or fall slightly at the end. Male trills when advertising nest site, courting, and arriving at nest with food; female trills to induce fledging... Monotonic Trills are most frequent early in nesting (nest-cavity advertisement) and again around fledging (pair-family contact)." 4. Rare owl species: If you are hearing Northern Saw-whet or Long-eared Owls calling in an apparently territorial manner, please take note of this and let us know where you're hearing these birds. Regardless of whether you detect any owls, please record and submit any survey effort you invest in trying to detect nocturnal species. Good birding! Aaron Boone Project Coordinator Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas II (614) 247-6458 [log in to unmask] www.ohiobirds.org/obba2/ ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]