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I moved last yr from my home located in a Nat'l Forest so I was just surrounded by woods with a small clearing for the house, not much actual open yard. For about 3 yrs we had a Whippoorwill that would start sounding off around dusk and for a few hrs after. Then started up the 2 great horned owls that lived out back. Occasionally one would sit on the front porch (huge!) and they would sound off for several hours, then, the moment the dawn started to break thru there were 2 Pileated woodpeckers and at least one of them started hammering the trees just on the other side of my driveway that was just outside the bedroom window. There is absolutely NO way to sleep through that jack hammering...and I slept with earplugs! Fortunately, the Pileated really only went at it during season. Generally, we enjoyed all the cacophony all around us at night. The Pileated were fun to watch but not to listen to. And unfortunately, once the Great Horned's moved in, we had no bats ever since. They won't live within a mile of an owls nest. So the skeeters were a problem.
Might be Barred Owls. The adults have a many-syllable call usually described as "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you" but the juveniles have a one note whistling call, and if there are several, you may hear this call from many directions at once as they check in on each other.
Here's a website with short clips.... the second one here the single "Whooo" is the one I'm thinking might(?) be your whistle. I often hear conversations that sound like a combination of the Whoo and the baby screech, and the monkey calls... they're very vocal.
Might be Barred Owls. The adults have a many-syllable call usually described as "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you" but the juveniles have a one note whistling call, and if there are several, you may hear this call from many directions at once as they check in on each other.
Here's a website with short clips.... the second one here the single "Whooo" is the one I'm thinking might(?) be your whistle. I often hear conversations that sound like a combination of the Whoo and the baby screech, and the monkey calls... they're very vocal.
I thought of that too...barred owls are expanding their range west into the Pac NW. It will be a problem for northern spotted owls. Barreds are closely related, but more aggressive.
We frequently see and hear barred owls at our place. I have never seen nor heard a spotted owl. Ever.
That's how survival of the fittest works... has always been so.
Barred owls are very cool. Below... A pic of a juvenile one who was on the roof of our garage one year. We heard him out there, calling to his parents who were answering back, teaching him how to owl
Barred owls have been in western Washington since the late 1960's and were already quite common in the northwest part of the state by the late 1980's, displacing and occasionally hybridizing with spotted owls. Their typical one note whistle call is a shrill up-rising whistle, very different from the deeper whoo-aww call. But I doubt that's what our poster heard. I think Parnassia's suggestion of pygmy owl is more likely, if its an owl.
Naturally, as is usual in these mystery whodunit internet bird call cases, the op never hears the bird again and can never get a recording.
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