Part of my job as oral history collection manager is evaluating potential donations for inclusion in our collection. Which frequently means listening to unmarked or marginally labeled tapes of all kinds. So I’m sitting at my desk, going through a box of audiocassettes from the local wildlife refuge and I pop an unlabeled one into the cassette player. I don’t have any headphones on because what the heck, it’s four days before Christmas, we don’t have any patrons, the interviews are generally pretty quiet, and I’m only listening to the first minute anyway.
I pushed the Play button and a VERY LOUD “OOOOOO-OOOOOOO” burst out and went echoing through the department. The cassette was a tape of identifying bird calls for bird watchers and apparently, the boreal owl is both very loud and very vocal.
Friends, I can’t vouch for the birds, but if you need to attract the library staff to your office on the double, I highly recommend imitating the call of the boreal owl. 🙂
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