Many of you may have heard about the Maine Owl Monitoring Program going on right now. Coordinated by Maine Audubon and the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, the program is now in its fifth year and relies entirely on volunteer participation.

I’d done the owl survey twice before, in the first two years of its existence. Those early survey protocols were very rigorous: Volunteers went out into the field three or four times over the course of four months, from January through April.

They were also assigned differing time slots for each time: One night it might be done from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., then another night from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m., and the third from 1 a.m. to 4 a.m. This was necessary to discover the best time of the season and the best time of night to reliably count owls, and it was successful in this. The data from these early surveys showed the best time to hear owls calling was during a five-week period between March 3 and April 10, between the hours of midnight and 4 a.m.

After that, volunteers had it much easier, relatively speaking. They needed only to go out once over this five-week time period.

Of course, no one is expected to go out alone and everyone is encouraged to partner up with someone. This year I asked my intrepid birding friend, Paul Markson, to accompany me, and he readily agreed.

Paul suggested I operate the tape player while he recorded all the necessary information: Time, temperature, wind speed, noise level (from cars, streams, planes, etc.), cloud cover, snow cover, and owl responses. We soon discovered this arrangement needed a little bit of tweaking.

Our first stop was near a residential area, with faint music coming from the house down the road and someone’s truck running. I didn’t expect we’d hear anything, but I was wrong: As soon as Paul began recording ambient data, I heard a barred owl hoot its signature “who cooks for you, who cooks for you awwllllll,” once in the distance.

“I just heard a barred owl! A barred owl!” I whispered excitedly, while Paul scribbled madly, juggling his clipboard with two different data sheets, watch, thermometer and flashlight.

The listening periods are very precise, and owl responses must be recorded within the minute they are heard. For example: At the start of the survey, we simply stand and listen for three minutes. We then play the recording of a saw-whet owl’s hooting, listen another two minutes, then play the barred owl vocalization. This is followed by a full six-minute listening period, for barred owls usually take longer to respond. After this six minutes, a final recording of a great horned owl is played, followed by a final two minutes of listening.

After our second survey stop, with Paul again juggling data sheets, watch, thermometer and flashlight, he appeared somewhat disillusioned.

“Now I know I never could have been a scientist,” he quipped, adding, “I think we need to change how we’re doing this.”

I suggested he just worry about recording ambient conditions and the start time of each survey stop. I’d continue to operate the tape player while timing the listening periods and recording owl responses. This worked out quite well, but during our next stop, we only heard a faint, brief vocalization of a saw-whet owl; at the next two stops, we heard nothing. Paul hinted he wouldn’t want to do this a second time.

We got lucky at our sixth stop and by our eighth stop we had hit pay dirt, with all three owls responding to our playbacks. The owls weren’t on top of us, but their hoots were easily discernable most of the time. We made a really good team: Paul sometimes could not hear the high notes of the saw-whet that I could, while I sometimes did not hear the lower-toned great horned owl and barred owl vocalizations that he picked up on.

It was very gratifying to hear the owls; it made us feel the venture was well worth missing a good night’s sleep. I pitied the volunteers who might not have owl responses at all; the night must really seem cold and dark then. However, no response is as important as some response to the project’s objective: to learn more about the fluctuations in owl populations in the state. But still – hearing the owls respond to our playbacks was fun.

Paul even allowed that he’d be willing to do it again next year.

BDN bird columnist Chris Corio can be reached at bdnsports@bangordailynews.net