Who's calling?

By CHRIS PETERSON / Hungry Horse News

Pete Smith walks into a small clearing in the woods and cups his hand to his mouth and lets out a call, that, roughly translated to English would be, "Who cooks you… Who cooks for you all."

But Smith isn't talking English here. He's speaking the language of birds. The robins immediately take notice and begin to chatter. Other songbirds flit about, somewhat nervous.

Smith is talking owl, and to be exact, barred owl. And it sounds nothing like most birds. Think monkey. Think jungle. That's what a barred owl sounds like.

"No one taught me (the call)," he explained at a recent visit to his home tucked in the woods. "I just practiced in the shower."

Since he moved to his rural Columbia Falls home some eight years ago, each spring and summer Smith takes time to talk to the majestic birds, with gorgeous gray feathers and striking black eyes.

He doesn't have to go far — he suspects the birds nest in a nearby swamp, not far from his house.

On this evening, Smith calls for about five minutes before an adult shows up, a sudden shadow in the trees. The resident robins don't like it one bit, and begin to chatter.

Smith calls and the adult calls back. It sounds like two monkeys talking to one another. Usually an adult will stay just a few minutes — long enough to check out what is calling and then leave. But on this night it stays longer, a good hour, before silently disappearing into the evening light.

SMITH IS A PATHOLOGIST at Kalispell Regional Medical Center; he initially studied zoology as an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota and was always spending time in the woods as a kid.

"They taught me basic birding," he said.

He did his graduate studies in Vermont and found barred owls there. After becoming a doctor, he looked for hospitals that were hiring in rural areas and chose Kalispell.

After buying his house, he stepped outside one day and did a barred owl call. The real deal called back.

Barred owls aren't nearly as common in the west as the east. Their range takes up a big swath of land east of the Mississippi, then up into Canada and then creeps back down into northwest Montana, Idaho and a sliver of Washington and Oregon.

So for birders here, Smith's calling abilities are a coveted commodity. Serious birders collect their sightings and record them. With barred owls being scarce in Montana, Smith found himself a in demand.

One man drove hundreds of miles to have Smith call in a barred owl.

Finally, Smith began scheduling callings for birders. He usually does one each year, in the late spring, for local birders.

On this night, the owl is about 50 feet above us, looking down from a tree, calling.

"It blows me away how loud they are," Smith says with a smile.

You can listen to the unique call of the barred owl at the Cornell University All About Birds Web site, at www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/, then search for barred owl.