Heard a bird call at the lake, a really distinctive one. It sounded like a rather breathy flute or recorder note–not modulated, just one mid-range note–not a hoot, but a very pure tone, but with a breathiness at least at the beginning. It would call once, but it called fairly frequently for awhile. At one point, it sounded as if two of these birds were exchanging this back and forth, but I couldn’t see either of them. While I am really crappy with birdcalls, I suspect that this one is distinctive enough that I could recognize it again.
It’s not a thrush, a cardinal, a mockingbird, a blue jay, a robin, or a mourning dove, and I don’t even know what to try after that.
Any thoughts?
Edit: Having gone through a lot of “Whatbird”‘s sound archives, I’ve ruled out a lot of stuff, but come no closer to my goal. It sounded most like a long-eared owl, if slightly higher pitched, but it seems unlikely that owls would call and answer each other during the morning. If you crossed a long-eared owl with a mourning dove (an experiment unlikely to occur in nature) that’d be right about it.
Oh, well, another Mystery Bird for the file…
