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That Damn farmer can't start his tractor! IT is a very low frequency, difficult to get a direction on it... and the sound carries. I have heard bitterns too, that is a cool sound, but it does not escalate and is not a pressure sort of thing!
Thing is, it is so quiet in the Adirondacks, you hear more, and the effect is more pronounced. So they do sound different up there than down where I live.
For those not familiar.
Bittern:
Ruffed Grouse
Owls can't hear this frequency or they too can't figure out where it is coming
from:
"
Out-wising the Owl
Besides ruffing it out, another part of the elaborate mating ritual male Grouse perform is to bang out a drumming solo from an old rotting log in the forest. These prime drumming locations are highly sought after by males. Ideally, they?re about 15 inches off the ground, 20 to 40 feet long, and sitting under branches to foil would-be winged predators. Once they find a keeper, male Grouse will likely spend the remainder of their lives no farther than a 200 to 300 yard radius from that log.
It is a sound of such low frequency, it is almost felt more than heard. To the uninitiated, a male drumming routine can often be confused for a pesky chainsaw or lawn mower that just won?t start-up in the spring. The deep base notes start slowly, build to a crescendo, and slow down again towards the end. All this is done without banging on the log at all however. The entire routine is achieved by rapidly rotating his wings back-and-forth so that they create a series of miniature sonic booms that can travel a quarter mile or more. Not bad for a bird that barely tips the scales at a pound.
This routine might seem like ringing the dinner bell for owls, but this surprisingly isn?t the case. Owls hear best in the high frequency range (think the squeaking of a mouse), and much less acutely at lower ranges. Grouse drumming is either so low that owls can?t hear it or the low-frequency long-wavelengths are too difficult for them to pinpoint."
Note the description from above : "Felt rather than heard"
Thing is, it is so quiet in the Adirondacks, you hear more, and the effect is more pronounced. So they do sound different up there than down where I live.
For those not familiar.
Bittern:
Ruffed Grouse
Owls can't hear this frequency or they too can't figure out where it is coming
from:
"
Out-wising the Owl
Besides ruffing it out, another part of the elaborate mating ritual male Grouse perform is to bang out a drumming solo from an old rotting log in the forest. These prime drumming locations are highly sought after by males. Ideally, they?re about 15 inches off the ground, 20 to 40 feet long, and sitting under branches to foil would-be winged predators. Once they find a keeper, male Grouse will likely spend the remainder of their lives no farther than a 200 to 300 yard radius from that log.
It is a sound of such low frequency, it is almost felt more than heard. To the uninitiated, a male drumming routine can often be confused for a pesky chainsaw or lawn mower that just won?t start-up in the spring. The deep base notes start slowly, build to a crescendo, and slow down again towards the end. All this is done without banging on the log at all however. The entire routine is achieved by rapidly rotating his wings back-and-forth so that they create a series of miniature sonic booms that can travel a quarter mile or more. Not bad for a bird that barely tips the scales at a pound.
This routine might seem like ringing the dinner bell for owls, but this surprisingly isn?t the case. Owls hear best in the high frequency range (think the squeaking of a mouse), and much less acutely at lower ranges. Grouse drumming is either so low that owls can?t hear it or the low-frequency long-wavelengths are too difficult for them to pinpoint."
Note the description from above : "Felt rather than heard"
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