Learn About Owls

You increase your chances of seeing owls if you bird at night, this is known as “owling”.  Most species of owls are active at night both hunting and vocalizing.  I suggest you go out in a group of at least three birders so that you can triangulate on the owl sounds by splitting up.  The less moonlight the better. Talk only in whispers and keep your head lamp out as much as possible.  When you do use your light do not shine it directly where you think the bird is.  Sneak up as quietly as possible and only turn our light on at the last moment for best results.  During nesting season listen for the calls of the babies who are hungry.

Did you know that Lakshmi, the Hindu Goddess of prosperity and wisdom, is associated with the Owl. And the peacock represents the Goddess Saraswati who is the goddess of the arts, music and knowledge. The Norse God Odin had 2 ravens as messengers. The Native Americans had the mythic Thunder Bird with great creative powers. The Egyptian Goddess of Truth carries a vulture feather.

Here's one of my favorite quotes with great advice.

"The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp." John Berry

This owl looks a little funny because they lack ear tufts.They are small for owls about 7 or 8 inches. When they are young they are chocolate brown. Look for the white eyebrows. They whistle the same note over and over again too, too, too, too as much as 130 times per minute. They live in forests, conifers and groves.

Contrary to what most owls do Snowy Owls do not hide.  Their white feathers do camouflage them on the snow, but during breeding season they show up well against the green tundra. In the US Snowy Owls breed only in Barrow, Alaska.  One of the reasons they breed in Barrow is the abundance of lemmings there for them to eat.  Their beautiful thick plumage insulates them as well as the coat of the arctic fox. They are just fine in temperatures as low as 40 degrees below zero.  We do not know how many Snowy Owls there are. 

A biologist named Denver Holt founded the Owl Research Institute in Montana.  He has tracked the Snowy Owl using satellite transmitters. In the winter many of them were found to stay in the Great Plains and in all over Canada.  I live in Colorado and in December 2015 a snowy was spotted up North in the Denver area.  This was reported on eBird and was confirmed.  The bird was on the ground. I’m excited to go up to the place reported on the map and try to see one of these fabulous creatures!  I have not personally seen this splendid creature (yet) but hope to sometime.  A fellow birder did see it and got the photo below.  Update the humans unfortunately scared this bird off.  I'm hoping that next year it returns to us, but unlike other birds, Snowies often next in a different place each year.  So we will see what this winter coming brings.

Snowy Owls were popularized when J.K Rowling chose a Snowy to be Harry Potter’s courier and companion.

Well, yes, they do sleep.  But a bird must be on guard at all times so they have developed a unique way to sleep.  They rest one hemisphere of their brain at a time, keeping one eye open at all times so they can be vigilant to danger.  How cleaver.

Another thing to know about owl eyes is that they can dilate one eye while contracting the other.  This is helpful when adjusting to the light level situation.

This is a mass movement of birds.  Boreal, hawk and great grey owls are known to irrupt. But the snowy owls are renowned for their unpredictable irruptions.  This event may seem random but it is usually caused by an abundance of voles or lemmings and/or over crowding in years when there is a bumper crop of young ones competing for food.

Wow, what an animal!  I saw a barn owl up close and personal a while back on a birding trip.  One flew right over my head about 10 feet.  Spectacular and BIG it must have been a female!

These owls usually live near humans, but for some reason I hadn't ever seen one til last year.  They are sometimes called the Common Barn Owl or the Western Barn Owl.  They are often killed by traffic and pesticides.  They eat small mammals.  They have a distinctive heart shaped face which assists them to hear for hunting.

The Western Screech Owl is a small owl with short ear tufts which he can erect them or put them down. There is a grey color morph or a brown one.  The facial disk is darker than the rest of him. Lives in woodlands, pine and oak forests and mesquites along the West coast from Canada to Mexico. There are actually 8 subspecies of Western Screech Owl. They eat mostly insects, but also small mammals, birds, frogs and reptiles.

That varies by type of owl and the location where they are found.  53% eat insects, 32% are carnivorous, some eat aquatic prey such as fish (known as piscivorous), 13% we still don't know what they eat.  Hunting behaviors vary according to what prey they eat.  One of the ways we learn about owls is by studying owl puke or pellets they regurgitate.  Owls have a unique digestive system.