Residential Owling

See the Western Screech-Owl? Ok, so it's a horrible photo, but this was taken with my iPhone 4 (several versions old) through my binoculars. This short post demonstrates two things:

1. You can find some pretty cool birds by walking streets through residential areas. This is a tall Phoenix palm in a front yard in the Tucson Country Club Estates, and the owl began tooting back at my imitation, which I had been using to bring in a Hermit Thrush, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, and Orange-crowned Warblers. We actually missed Western Screech-Owl on last year's CBC.

2. If you find a really rare bird, there are all sorts of tools you can use to document it. Even better than a photo, and easier to execute, would have been a sound recording, which you can make with almost any phone or camera these days. My favorite iPhone app is Audio Memos.