Lyndhurst, New Forest.
1909
Aug. 19-23
(No 6)
  About eleven o'clock on the night of the 22nd I was
undressing in my room when two Owls began hooting in the
garden at the rear of the Crown Hotel. I threw the window
wide open and stood by it for nearly half an hour listening to
them and shivering with cold, for the air was damp & chill.
During this period they hooted three or four times a minutes, one regularly
answering the other. One was evidently very near at hand, probably
within 30 or 40 yards, the other apparently at the far end of the
garden - about 150 yards away. Their notes were similar if not
identical (ie. those of the one to those of the other) and in form & accent
essentially the same as the first three or four notes of our Great
Horned Owl's hoot; but their voices were unlike that of our Bubo
and more nearly resembled that of our Megascops (asio). Although much
louder and more sonorous as well as somewhat different in other respects.
At times they had a wailing, at others a hollow quality, suggesting by turns
the sound of wind in rigging (or the telegraph wire humming), and that
of wind blowing down a chimney of a winter's night. Altogether a
most weird, impressive sound, not closely comparable to that
produced by any Owl I remember to have heard before yet not wholly
dissimilar, as I have said, to the wailing of our Screech Owl.
I wish I knew just what the birds were. The garden, although
two or more acres in extent & well supplied with trees, is in
the heart of a populous village, yet only a few hundred yards
distant from the forest. It might be haunted, I suppose, by
either the Barn or the Brown Owl & perhaps even by the Eagle Owl.
I wrote down on the spot, while actually listening to them, the
following renderings of the notes just described.
Coo,Coo-hoo-hoo.
Coo, hoo-o-o
Coo, hoo-o
Hoo,o-o-o-o
In every utterance I heard the first note 
& the last were strongly accented.
Owls
hooting