Harry Potter's Owl Name

Harry names her after a witch he finds mentioned in one of his first school books, 'A History of Magic' by Bathilda Bagshot.

The only thing that J.K. Rowling herself mentioned in interviews about her name choice for Harry's owl is 'Hedwig was a Saint'. Now there are two saints of this name in the calendar, one is 'St. Hedwig of Silesia' (1174-1243) and the other is St. Hedwig, a polish queen that lived from 1373 to 1399. Both were known for caring for the poor, needy and orphans and in the case of the first one, an order that carried her name was later founded and she was chosen as the Patron Saint. This order, 'The Sister of St. Hedwig' exists until today and runs schools and orphanages. There are currently around 300 St. Hedwig Sisters worldwide. As Harry himself is an orphan, it is only fitting that his first friend was named after this special saint, as he needed the protection of 'St. Hedwig' ;-) It is little details like this, that make the >Harry Potter Series< so special and great fun to research more in depth for fans like me!

Hedwig is a Snowy Owl and is actually played in the movies by male birds. One main one and, at least, two back-up and stunt birds. The reason for this was, that male Snowy Owls are smaller, hence easier to handle for child actors, and whiter than female ones. The real name of the main Hedwig is Gizmo, the 'main owl actor', but it was actually an owl called 'Ook' that was casted the very first for a role in 'Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone', even before Daniel Radcliffe himself! And the third owl is called 'Sprout', yes, just like Prof. Sprout, the herbology teacher.

All owls were trained by Gary Gero, who also trained Fang (Hagrid's dog) and the cat that plays Mrs.Norris. His, rather sparse, website can be found here: http://www.birdsandanimals.com.

Many fans were deeply upset as Hedwig was killed at the beginning of 'Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows' in 'The Battle of the Seven Potters'. Whilst it is shown in the film that she dies protecting Harry, in the book she is hit by a stray curse whilst sitting in her cage.

J.K. Rowling stated in an interview that Hedwig's death symbolizes the end of his innocence and, relatively protected, childhood.

• Hedwig, together with the Weasley family owl Errol, lives now >here< and can be visited by everybody. The one confusing bit about that website, apart of the ridiculous small print in the sidebar, is that it misspells Errol's name frequently as 'Eral'.

• The film music, the Harry Potter theme is actually called 'Hedwig's Theme' and was composed by John Williams.

They need up to 12 mice / day, or the equivalent of that, and even more during breeding and nesting season. This means that one Snowy Owl will kill and eat around 4500 mice, or their equivalent in other species, per year!

Like other owls they swallow most of their food whole and regurgitate the parts they can't digest later. The content of these regurgitations are, because of their form, called 'owl pellets'.

They have few natural enemies and the parent owls are always watchful to protect their ground nests against foxes, wolves and similar.

If you dream to have an owl like Harry Potter's, I have bad news for you! In many countries, including the USA, it is close to impossible to get permission to keep any owl as they are a protected species. Also, they do need a lot of space and time, so that they can fly regularly and eat a lot of mice, which need to be bred, killed and enriched with vitamins etc. So, having an owl as a pet is really not feasible in the majority of cases. But you can always buy a Hedwig Look-alike at Amazon, see below ;)

Did you like this article? Check out my other >Harry Potter< articles here on Wizzley ;-)