We spent the next two hours walking along the roads and tractor paths that run through the oak - hickory forest. Other than several outbreaks of vocalizations from Barred Owls and the ever present Whip-poor-wills the evening was very quiet.
Upon returning to my vehicle I decided to try out a new sound blasting technique that I had been shown recently by John Andrews of Washington State. I had just purchased a Western Safety 50 watt battery powered megaphone. John Andrews does some awesome calls using this system and I was hoping to copy him. I did two or three calls but the night air was still without any type of response at all. So we drove four miles and got ready to try it again. I let out one call with no responses and then let out a second call. What we heard back was not what I expected. Upon first hearing the three short calls that we heard and recorded my thought was wow, someone is answering us from a ridge about a half mile away from us. I did another call but nothing further was heard.
It was now after midnight and we decided to call it a night. I drove home and uploaded the sounds on my computer. The calls I recorded were distant and faint, and most surprising short. My friend had mentioned to me in the field that the returned call almost sounded like my voice. I thought that odd but upon listening to them I tend to agree. Was someone or something a good enough mimic to not only return my call but also make it sound somewhat like my voice?
To listen to the complete sequence click here:
Calls of 18 May 2006
The returned calls can be heard at 48 sec., 70 sec., and 90 seconds.
To listen to the three return calls alone click here:
Three return calls
By using Cool Edit Pro version 2.00 I was able to analyze the sound and amazingly the first call that was returned was exactly the same frequency as I had used in the megaphone, 645.9 hz.
1st - Stan's call using the megaphone
2nd - The returned call
You can click on the two links below and listen to a very short segment of both my megaphone call and the returned call.
Short segment of Stan's call
Short segment of returned call
I don't want to make too much out of this because the sounds recorded were short and not of good enough quality to make any real decision about what or whom we recorded.
