If you've never heard a barn owl scream you need to check out the video I took today. I work very closely with the Important Bird Areas Coordinator for the state of Georgia (a National Audubon Society program), and last year he and I set up a couple of barn owl boxes at our local landfill. The landfill managers contacted us after the owls nested in a bad place and lost all their chicks in an unfortunate accident last year.
Today we decided to check the boxes. Our monitoring volunteers told us that there were two owls at the landfill, even though the female lost her mate last year (found long dead in one of the boxes). We checked out one of the boxes and viola, a female barn owl incubating two eggs! We captured, banded, and released her. We're hoping to do the same for the chicks when they hatch, although that's tricky to get the timing right due to staggered fledging dates.
Here's the video of the VERY loud barn owl as we're carrying her off to let the managers see what they worked so hard to save!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTu0a...O5sDm_i14ndwM=