Steve Wilson and a group of Massachusetts birders and I headed north = from the owl symposium Saturday night and were treated to a grand = display of Northern Lights, which then dimmed and faded, outshown by a = waxing 3/4 moon of canary yellow. A near windless night gave us = excellent chances for hearing owls, but we had only one vocalization, a = Boreal Owl female contact call. We did not see her, so we are not = certain, so list it as you see fit, I will list it as "probable". The = highlight of the evening was a Lynx seen alongside the road. This cat = leaped and twisted improbably fast and high to clear the roadside snow = and disappear immediately into the thick boreal forest. As we perused = the huge tracks it made bounding away, we considered ourselves very = fortunate indeed. 3 of our party of 5 saw the cat very well from 75 feet = in the car headlights. As we then decompressed under the Aurora = Borealis, soaking a bright star-spangled sky only Carl Sagan could = enumerate, we heard the cat vocalizing from about 100 feet away. Then = two cats, one very distant and beyond the first cat. This vocalization = is unlike anything I have heard in the wild. It sounds like an agonistic = female human scream. The duration of each "wail" lasted a second or = two, starting high and shrill then dropping in tone and volume to a = gargling guttural growl. The next phrase was immediately started. It = sounded like the Lynx ran out of air with each phrase, as it tailed off = and turned into a gargling growl. Phonetically, it is something like = "Eeowwrr......Eeowwrrr....Oahhrrr...etc. I heard the phrases in groups = of three to ten. It called constantly for between 15 and 20 minutes. The = longest it was silent in this period of time was about 30 seconds. The = other cat was heard for about 5 seconds, from a distance, how far I am = not sure. It did not appear to be an echo, it was not syncopated to the = other cat's calls. The calls as they proceeded in a group of phrases = would grow more drawn out and end more gutturally. They would seem to be = reduced in volume as well as they progressed in the group of phrases. = Steve Lock, a biologist working with these cats in this region, was = thrilled to hear the event described, and supposes we heard the extended = bark call that is given for the 2-3 week period each year they are = breeding. He was not sure if it was female or male, but was going to = attempt to track the animal and determine if it is a collared cat and if = so, add more details to the story. Steve has never heard this call live = but has read about it. Those of you that wish to hear this, directions = to the site are simple. Drive north on Hwy 2 from Two Harbors till a = Lynx jumps in front of you. Stop and listen there. Good Luck. Good = Birding.