So there is this noise outside keeping me up. We have many pleasant night time noises around our house. Tree frogs, crickets, barred owls, great horned owls and, not often but always welcomed no matter the hour, the whippoorwill.

This noise is NOT pleasant. It is a loud screech every 3-4 seconds! I've been listening to bird noises trying to figure out which is the offender and it sounds like a barn owl screech but I've never heard or seen one around here before. My next guess is the barred owl. They have a lovely hoot but sometimes make thishorrendous call (that's a little creepy to wake up to, lol). Those are the barred owl sounds I am familiar with but apparently they scream as well. I've never heard them scream before so I can't say for sure.

I love living here and I love the owls....but if I see that owl sleeping in a tree tomorrow (and we often do see them in the day) I'm going to go out and screech at him so he knows what I'm going through tonight.

We had the exact same thing here about a month ago. We assumed it was an owl, as well. It lasted one night, for about 3-4 loooong hours, but then it didn't come back. With luck you are in for only one session and then it will move on.

We live in the heart (not suburbs) of a large city, so it was especially strange. But we've seen stranger, like the day two wild turkeys walked across the street, casual as could be, not ten feet from where the neighbors and I chatted on our sidewalk.

It is the animals' world and we humans just live in it.

Now what were those turkeys doing in the city...silly birds!!

The owls have been here for years so I hope they don't move on! I just want the screeching to stop, lol. We sit on the porch most evenings and see them in the trees quite often. They don't seem bothered by us and we try not to bother them. That's my approach to everything that lives here with the exception of mice that try to move into the house and poisonous snakes. Everyone else is welcome here. DH even bought a bat house when we had to kick the bats out of the attic vents, lol.

I've turned on a fan to drown out the screech. I could close the windows but it's nice out and the honeysuckle smells sooooo good!! Ahhhh....if we could only have spring all year!!

We have that here all the time! First time I heard it I thought there were a troupe of monkeys in our woods!

I actually love it now, but then I am a bit of a bird nerd!!!

Does sound like a barn owl, we had one a couple of summers ago, and he/she moved on, and I miss it. It is a god awful screech.

"ours" was this version

We recorded it, and had the ornithologist at Wild Birds Unlimited tell us that it was a Barred Owl.

We've had that one too!!

But this one is the most common, and usually late at night.

cool never had that one!!

At least now if you hear it, you'll know it's an owl and not a bunch of monkeys having a war in the trees outside!!!

LOL, yup, those are barred owls. First time I heard it I thought maybe we lived in a forest with a Sasquatch or some such freaky thing.

I can't believe my kids sleep through all that racket!