TEMPLE – It’s early morning and Si Balch flashes a light on the boom box perched on the roof of his car before pushing the play button. After two minutes of silence, a series of recorded long-eared owl hoots interrupts the stillness.

The hoots stop, and except for the occasional tree creaking in the dark hours it falls quiet again.

“I haven’t heard anything since we got here,” says Balch, who lives in Wilton.

Then a series of barred owl hoots play.

It is the only dark-eyed owl known to live in Maine.

The “hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo” of the barred owl sounds like “who, who, who cooks for you,” Balch said.

Suddenly “hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo” answers from a distance.

Balch looks toward where it came from and listens again.

“That’s a barred owl right at the range of our hearing,” he says, estimating it to be a half-mile away.

Balch, a forester for 37 years, says it is scientific curiosity that has brought him out after midnight to see if owls are living in the area. It’s the same thing that draws him out to listen for frogs.

“It’s run as a true scientific experiment,” Balch says. “It’s not just observing things.”

It is put together by ornithologists and coordinated by the Maine Audubon Society, he says, so that they can analyze the data over a significant stretch of time.

Balch is one of dozens of volunteers to go out between 1 and 5 a.m. to conduct owl surveys each spring. Initially, the surveys were conducted three times each season at different times but this was found to be the best time.

Balch completed his official survey two weeks before and heard two owls.

On this day, he demonstrates how it was done.

Normally his route, which consists of 10 stops of 13 minutes each to listen, runs from Temple to Wilson Pond in Wilton, but this is a shorter version.

He established his own listening spots on the society’s chosen course early on, and he marked each spot with red tape on a utility pole so he can return the following year.

The stops have to be at least a mile apart. He’s chosen them for safe parking and far enough from houses not to wake the neighbors. It’s also good not to be near running water, which makes it more difficult to hear.

The first stop is at the intersection of Day Mountain Road and Staples Pond Road, a couple miles or so from where Route 43 ends.

He puts his oversized radio on the roof of his vehicle and connects it to a converter inside. He lays a monitoring-log open on the car’s hood and places a thermometer under a windshield wiper.

With not a star showing in the sky, Balch declares it 100 percent overcast. The thermometer reads 32 degrees. There’s no wind or precipitation in the air and snow covers the ground.

There also has been no traffic since he stopped.

Six minutes of silence follows the barred owl recorded hoots to give a chance for them to respond. They like to take their time, he says.

Then a series of deep hoots of the great horned owl breeches the quiet again.

It is not unusual for people to go out and listen for owls and not hear anything, he says.

Balch listens a bit more before the CD indicates it’s time to move on.

He packs up the equipment and leaves the thermometer under the wiper blade and drives to the next stop. He pulls over on the Temple intervale not far from Route 43.

He hoists the radio up on the roof and turns it on.

When he doesn’t hear anything for a while, he shines his flashlight on it.

“It helps if the volume is turned up,” he says, as he adjusts it.

The barred owl’s recorded hoots play in the area. The mini-roar of a running brook disturbs the silence.

Then a repeated, sharp noise punctuates the rhythm.

Balch listens. It’s a barking dog.

The recorded great horn owl’s hoots sound off.

“I heard a great horned owl three years ago from here,” he said.

This particular species is known as the grizzly bear of the owls and eats everything, including other owls, skunks, porcupines and poodles, Balch says.

For a few minutes, he plays different owl calls on the CD.

Hoots of an Eastern screech owl and a saw-whet owl call among others.

Then a distant screech-like noise interrupts.

Balch laughs.

The real owls interfere with the recorded hoots making it difficult to determine exactly what type of owl just called back.

It could be a screech owl, he said, before it’d time to go to the next listening stop.

He pulls to the side of a dirt road, gets out of the car and sets the radio on the roof.

He checks the thermometer; it still reads 32 degrees.

Lights of a house glow off in the distance and a running brook is heard.

It had been frozen the first time around, he says.

Maple sap lines connect the trees along the side of the road.

About 150 years ago, this was all fields, he says.

The recording of the long-eared owl sounds again, then the barred owl and the great horned owl.

There are no return calls this time.

Balch shuts the radio off, puts it away and removes the thermometer from the window as he wraps up another owl monitoring season and drives off.