Question:-
What makes a blood curdling scream in the middle of the night, followed by a soft woof woofing sound?
Maybe someone being attacked by  a mass murderer with his dog?
Or Maybe a vicious rapist  and his dog!
Neither:-
This is the call of one of our rarest and least known nocturnal birds of prey , the Barking Owl, (Ninox connivens). otherwise known as The Screaming Woman Owl.

The female Barking Owl makes this hideous scream, usually in the mating season. It is her mate that replies with the soft woof woof call.  It seams he is trying to reassure her and keep her happy.  He has mating
on his mind. Mating takes place in late winter or early spring. Two or three eggs are laid in a hollow of a tall, old eucalypt up to ten metres from the ground.

Barking Owls live in pairs, roosting in leafy trees by day.  Their food is mostly small mammals and possums.  The male is much larger than his mate.  They are large predominately brown birds with white baring
on their chests and bellies.  They have large yellow eyes and hooked beaks for tearing their food.  They kill with their strong talons.

Smaller than the Powerful Owl, (Ninox Strenua) and  larger than the Boobook Owl, (Ninox novaeseelandiae), the Barking Owl is a member of the Hawk-Owl family.  The male is 430 mm whilst the female is 380 mm.

Because it is uncommon in most of its range, it is exciting to have our own pair of breeding Barking Owls right here in Mt Evelyn.  This pair were heard in a gully in Glenholme Avenue last Thursday night by my
neighbours. I also heard them on Sunday evening. Barking Owls have been recorded in this area since the 1950s.  Jack Hyett, in his book, A Bushman's Year p138, recalls his encounter with these magnificent birds this way:-
"As I stood there, the screams, horrifying in their resemblance to those of a badly scared woman, came from a spot on the road that I had just left, and now I remembered I had heard cries very similar to them a few years before among the fern gullies of the Dandenongs, and had been told that they were the calls of the Powerful Owl, sometimes known, so my informant had told me, as the Screaming Woman Owl."

If you are woken in the night by a loud screaming call, remember it is quite likely the Barking Owl, and not your neighbour being murdered.  There is no need to call the police.  Much better to record the event
and enjoy the uniqueness of one of Australia's most secretive and uncommon birds.