Barred Owl

Barred Owl
Strix nebulosa [now Strix varia]
Folio edition, plate 46

“Should you, reader, find it convenient or agreeable to visit the noble forests existing in the lower parts of the State of Louisiana, about the middle of October, when nature, on the eve of preparing for approaching night, permits useful dews to fall . . . on every plant, . . . when every night insect rises on buzzing wings from the ground, . . . and the fair moon, empress of the night, rises peacefully on the distant horizon . . . it is at this moment, reader, that . . . your ear would suddenly be struck by the discordant screams of the Barred Owl. Its whah, whah, whah, whah-aa is uttered loudly, and in so strange and ludicrous a manner, that I should not be surprised were you . . . to compare these sounds to the affected bursts of laughter which you may have heard from some of the fashionable members of our own species.”

John James Audubon, Ornithological Biography, or An Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America (Edinburgh: A. Black [et al.], 1831), vol. 1, p. 242

View bird in National Audubon Society Guide to North American Birds.