Owls are such unmistakable and fascinating creatures. Just as I think of hummingbirds as being at one end of the spectrum of “birds that aren’t like regular birds,” owls are at the other end. They are a world apart from the other perching (passerine) birds of which they are a part even though I’m contradicting myself with this statement. Owls are just — different.
There are nineteen different species of owls in North America. They range in size from the Great Gray Owl, with a wingspan of more than four feet, to the tiny Elf Owl, which is not much bigger than a sparrow. I’ve only seen a few owls and chances are, you’ve had the same experience unless you’ve lived in a number of different places, as owls don’t stray much from their ranges.
The North American owls are the Barred Owl, Barn Owl, Great-Horned Owl, Long-Eared Owl, Northern Saw-Whet Owl, Eastern Screech Owl, Western Screech Owl, Elf Owl, Snowy Owl, Boreal Owl, Burrowing Owl, Flammulated Owl, Great Gray Owl, Northern Pygmy Owl, Ferruginous Pygmy Owl, Northern Hawk Owl, Short Eared Owl, Whiskered Screech Owl, and Spotted Owl. (Much of the information I’m including in today’s Dawn Chorus comes from the All About Birds website maintained by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.)
As a child, I lived in a suburban neighborhood in Los Angeles. I’d never seen an owl in real life. The only owl I knew was Wally, the mascot of Western Airlines, who lounged against the rudder of the airplane he was flying on in TV commercials. He would say in a husky voice at the end of every commercial, “Western Airlines — the ONLY way to fly!” He often held a cigarette aloft in a holder and in other variations, a martini.
Barn Owl
When I finally saw an owl in real life, it was a Barn Owl perched under a railroad trestle. Here is the photo I took of it. As you can see, this was before I got a little better at bird photography. Compare this Barn Owl to the title photo above as evidence of progress.
The Barn Owl is one of the most widespread land birds and is found on six continents and many islands. It can be found in woodlands, groves, farms, barns, towns, or cliffs typically in open or semi-open country. They may also be found in the city if there are nearby farmlands, prairies, or marshes nearby. Their call is not like a typical owl but a long, harsh scream lasting for 2 seconds or more. Listen here: www.allaboutbirds.org/…
Here’s a look at the Barn Owl range map. As you can see, they’re found in most parts of the country.
Here’s a photo of another Barn Owl that I captured out at the Point Reyes National Observatory. This one seemed to pose for me, which made for a cool experience.
Owls vary greatly in body size and habitat choice, and they capture a wide variety of prey, including small mammals, often swallowing them whole. Their meal might be mice, rats, moles, squirrels, rabbits, and skunks but some also eat insects, worms, spiders, frogs, lizards, and small birds too.. Some owls can only live in certain habitats while others can adapt to different landscapes and are quite able to survive. Some of these owls hunt in the daytime but most of them hunt at night.
Great Horned Owl
The Great Horned Owl is the most widespread owl in North America. They are found everywhere. This is a large owl up to 24 inches with a wingspan up to 2 1/2 feet. They are equally at home in deserts, wetlands, forests, grasslands, backyards, cities, and almost any other semi-open habitat between the Arctic and the tropics.
Great Horned Owls roost during the day in trees, on sheltered ledges, or in other secluded spots. At night, it forages in woods and fields for medium-sized mammals such as rabbits and skunks, Western populations vary from gray as shown above) to very dark.
Great Horned Owls are covered in extremely soft feathers that insulate them against the cold winter weather and help them fly very quietly in pursuit of prey. Their short, wide wings allow them to maneuver among the trees of the forest.
I don’t see Great Horned Owls that often, but when I do, it’s typically sitting in a tree partially obscured by branches like the photo below. Getting clear shots like those above are the exception rather than the rule, in my experience.
The Great Horned Owl’s call is the sound most people associate with owls if you asked them what an owl sounds like. The universal response would be hoo-hoo-hoo. Listen here: www.allaboutbirds.org/… As for the Great Horned Owl range map, as I said, it’s everywhere:
Burrowing Owl
If you’ve never seen a Burrowing Owl in real life, I hope you get the chance sometime soon. These little owls — and I do mean little in comparison to some other owls — are undeniably cute. With their long legs and their bright yellow eyes, they’re in a class by themselves.
They live underground in burrows they’ve dug themselves or taken over from a prairie dog, ground squirrel, or tortoise. They live in grasslands, deserts, and other open habitats, where they hunt mainly insects and rodents.
I’m fortunate that I live near a Burrowing Owl colony well-known to birders in and around Davis, CA. How well known?
A very slow drive along this short stretch of road near an agricultural field and an orchard of olive trees reveals a number of burrows and owls peeking out here and there.
Burrowing Owls’ conservation status has been declining for many years, owing to prairie dog and ground squirrel control programs, and also habitat loss and accidental mortality (many are killed by cars). They are now considered endangered or threatened in some areas.
Prairie-dog towns once furnished much ideal habitat in the west, but these are now scarce, and the owls are found on airports, golf courses, vacant lots, industrial parks, other open areas. They will take advantage of any help offered. Burrowing Owls have been known to nest in piles of PVC pipe and other lairs unintentionally provided by humans. Conservationists make use of the owls' adaptability by supplying artificial burrows made of buckets, pipes, tubing, and other human-made materials.
I found these guys nesting in an abandoned housing development that had paved streets and storm drains that they put to use.
One last little Burrowing Owl photo, my favorite of all.
You can hear the Burrowing Owl’s calls here: www.allaboutbirds.org/…
And here’s a look at the range map for them:
Western Screech Owl
The Western Screech-Owl is Inconspicuous but locally very common. In the varied terrain of the west, its haunts range from coastal forests in southeastern Alaska to cactus groves in the Arizona desert, and it is often found in suburban areas. Until the 1980s, Western and Eastern screech-owls were considered to belong to the same species because they look so similar; however, their voices differ, and they apparently recognize their own kind by sound.
Like most owls, the Western Screech Owl forages at dusk and at night. It hunts mostly by watching from a perch and then swooping down to take prey from the ground or from foliage. It also catches flying insects in the air. It can locate prey by sound as well as by sight.
The camouflage of this owl is utterly amazing. Here’s a sequence of the only photos I’ve taken of this small owl. I was out birding with a friend who had previously seen the owl and she walked me to a spot and told me to look closely at this tree. I looked. I saw nothing.
She said to keep looking. I did. I eyeballed this tree by grids until — BOOM! — there it was. Do you see it?
The Western Screech-Owl is only about 8-1/2” tall and weighs only 5oz. That’s a pretty small owl.
Have you found it yet? Here’s a closer look:
The Western Screech Owl’s song is a short series of hoots. You can hear it here, including a video of the bird calling at night. www.allaboutbirds.org/… The last two calls presented are the only ones I’d even loosely call a screech, so I’m a bit befuddled by the bird’s given name. Here is the range map for the Western Screech Owl:
These are the four species of owls in the west that I’ve personally seen and photographed as shared here. I’ve also seen Short-eared Owls flying low and hunting at dusk, but I’ve not managed to get a decent photo of one yet. I plan to do another Dawn Chorus on owls featuring the photographs of a good friend of mine who is an owl fanatic. She actually traveled from Northern California to Minnesota in winter just to go searching for Snowy Owls. You can look forward to Owl Part II in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, I hope you had a great holiday and are looking forward to the new year. I certainly am, though it’s going to be another insane election that we’ll have to live through. If 2019 is any indication, 2020 is going to be nutso.
The floor is open for your birdy thoughts and observations about owls or anything else in the bird world.