Bird call (?) identification

April 22, 2022 5:58 PM

What creature is making this sound?

I don't know if it's actually a bird, or maybe a frog or...?  I've never managed to see the source of the sound, just heard it many times in San Francisco, CA (in Golden Gate Park as well as in the courtyard near my house).

This has been haunting me for months because it's such a unique call and yet my various google searches have failed to turn up anything even remotely similar.

I tried BirdNET but it says it's a Human :-/

posted by night kitchen to Science & Nature (3 answers total)

I played it into the (fantastic! also from Cornell) Merlin smartphone app and it said:
- Pied-billed Grebe
- Great Horned Owl

Although the 2nd and 3rd time I did so, it identified nothing. But maybe that gives you something to start with.
posted by intermod at 9:40 PM on April 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

With the caveat that I'm not familiar with western birds or frogs, I'm reasonably certain that's not a great horned owl. It could be a western screech owl, though.
posted by mollweide at 9:07 PM on April 23, 2022

Response by poster: I guess I have to accept that the mystery remains for now. Thank you intermod and mollweide for offering possible leads.
posted by night kitchen at 1:20 PM on April 26, 2022