Photo © Copyright 2003, by Nancy Smolack. All rights reserved.

Great Horned Owls

For those living near forested areas or those who just like to hike on winter evenings the sound of Great Horned Owls calling out their love songs to one another is one of the unforgettable sounds at the end of the year. These hoots help the loving couple keep track of one another in the forest while they scout out the ideal home for their impending offspring and define the limits of their territory.

Owls nest in cavities and look for large hollow trees to use as nesting sites - the sorts of trees most people remove as "worthless." But to an owl (and large numbers of other species that depend on them) these old hollow trees are prime real estate.

Photo © 2005 Copyright Jim Jung and licensors. All rights reserved.

A female Great Horned Owl will lay up to three perfectly spherical eggs in the bottom and brood them for two weeks until they hatch. By January all the Great Horned Owls in our area should have eggs in the nest or even hatching chicks. Mom and Dad keep the hungry youngsters well fed and growing on a diet of mice and voles and by spring the chicks are fledged and already learning the lessons of the hunt from their parents.

Should you be cruising the woods and suddenly get dive-bombed by an angry owl take cover and then take a careful look around - you may be near a grounded owlet. Great Horned Owls leaving their nests in the spring, but just because they think they can fly doesn't mean they manage it all that well... at least at first.

Like all baby birds, baby owls reach a point in their young lives when it's fly or get left behind. And like other baby birds the parents fly protection overhead to keep their youngsters safe and well fed until they can fly reasonably well on their own.

Even after they learn to fly - just one of the hurdles in a young owl's life - they're still almost completely dependent on their parents for food and protection. It will be at least another three months before the young owls learn to hunt well enough so that they have a chance of making it on their own alone.

Like many species in our area - and particularly those who require mature woodland and forest as habitat - the limiting factor for family life is not lack of habitat but lack of suitable nesting sites. So if you're in a position to save an old "worthless" tree for nesting do so, or consider building a nesting box for owls. We need more owls.

Offsite Link:

• Great Horned Owl, USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter
• The Owl Pages entry for Bubo virginianus

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