False alarm…
The sound we heard was a pair of Barred Owls. That’s what I get for being startled out of a sound sleep and standing on the front porch making a recording in the pre-dawn hours.
Waldo Asquith of Charlottesville made the right call. The sounds we heard this morning were not coyotes, they were Barred Owls and you can verify this from a recording on the birds.cornell.edu site.
I have some good news, or perhaps bad, depending on what you were hoping for. You are hearing a pair of barred owls, and not coyotes. They make that characteristic “who cooks for you?” hooting pattern, as it’s known.
To learn more about the barred owl, and hear a brilliant recording of its call, see Cornell’s page at http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Barred_Owl.html.
Thanks, Waldo,
You are right. The recordings are identical.
I have changed my post to reflect your comment.
That certainly explains the hysterical crows on the recording I made this morning.
The last time we heard coyotes, our neighbor went out and shot a bunch of them, so we know they favor this area. We’ll just have to wait until we get positive identification before turning on the recorder.
Coincidently, I was just on that site last night, trying to identify some other bird sounds.
When I first heard those owls I thought it was neighborhood kids monkeying around.
David, I grew up hearing those owls, and it drove our pet dogs crazy. On a separate species, my wife and I had a frightening/funny experience with a screech owl while camping – it sounded like a child screaming.
I may try to hunt for coyotes in Floyd around the second week of October. What have you seen or heard of them in this area? Thanks, Jim