This is bird note.

The low-pitched hoot of a long-eared owl can carry for half a mile. The bird flies low across open fields in the dark, listening intently for

rodent prey. When it's not hunting, the owl perches in a dense stand of trees.

It's a slender owl with two long feather tough sticking straight up like ears on top of its head.

Its muted feathers may act as camouflage with the surrounding leaves,

but you can't miss this owl's intense yellow eyes and orange-y brown face.

Long-eared owls live across North America and temperate Europe and Asia.

During the spring mating season, males display to females in zigzag flight

while clapping their wings together. In winter, the owls may form communal roosts of up to a hundred birds.

In some areas, long-eared owl populations are declining due to habitat loss.

Open farm fields where the owls once hunted have reverted to deciduous woods or morphed into housing tracks.

Wildlife advocates suggest helping the owls by preserving open fallow fields and by avoiding pesticides

that find their way into the owls prey.

For Bird Note, I'm Mary McCann. you're