Essays

Wild On The Prairie: Birds

Nesting great horned owls can injure a homeowner
December 26, 2010

The great horned owls are hooting. It is courting time – old established couples are arguing about where to nest this year, and young males are actively roaming looking for a female without a mate. Go out at night and listen. Their calls are series of deep hoots  – in series of two or three.

The Sibley Center would like to map the nesting owls  – so please call us if you hear or see them anytime in the next two weeks (432.684.6827 or email bwilliams@sibleynaturecenter.org). For years there has been a pair downtown, another one near Hill Park, another pair has nested at Claydesta, and the west side water tower has had a pair. Somewhere near Lowe's another pair has been recorded, too.

It is a great excuse to get outside late at night or very early in the morning. City folk ought to take the opportunity to make the acquaintance of these large, fierce predators. Males and females cannot be separated by their plumage, but the female is always larger than the male. The male weighs three to three and a half pounds, the female three and a half to four pounds. Their wingspan is four to four and a half feet, the female again the larger. Their distinctive head features include large yellow eyes, two long “horns” or ear tufts, and a white ascot under the throat. The head of an owl with its eyes closed sitting in the shade at the back of a crevice looks much like a cat!

Great Horned Owls start their families in the winter because the young take so long to become independent. Therefore the human residents of the area have had the privilege of listening to the love songs of the owls. The female begins the song, “whoo, ooh, ooh, ooh, whoo, whoo”. She calls over and over at about 20 second intervals. The male responds, often beginning before she has finished, “whoo, who, who, whoo, whooo.” Sometimes they sing for an hour or more.

Great Horned Owls do not build their own nest. If available, they use an old hawk nest. Arthur Bent (1938, U. S. Nat’l Museum Bulletin 170) cites two instances of Great Horned Owls using squirrel nests and there has been such a nest near Hill Park. In Midland County they have used such diverse sites for nests as the steel beams of a large metal shed, the top of a bale of hay under a shelter, a hole in the side of a caliche pit, and on the ground at the base of a pecan tree.

A Great Horned Owl will catch and eat almost any creature its size or smaller: birds, mammals, snakes, and insects. They hunt at night, taking what is available and most easily caught. This includes rodents, rabbits, skunks, doves, ducks, and other owls. They swallow prey whole or in big chunks, regurgitating the hair, feathers and bones in a large pellet, so one can determine what they have been eating by dissecting the pellet. Someone needs to examine some pellets from these city owls. The most common prey item in the area would seem to be white-winged doves.

Their skill in hunting is evidence when there are young to be fed. Bent described one nest where the parents brought 113 full grown rats to their young within a week, and another nest where all the surplus food that the young did not eat in week was found to weigh 18 pounds! The adult owls rarely attempt to take flight carrying prey which weighs as much as they.

The adults are very protective of the nest and the area around it and have been known to attack humans who were merely passing by. The attacks are dangerous, made more so by the unexpectedness with which they occur. The owl flies on silent wings, makes no warning calls, and attempts to sink its talons into the head or back of the offender. Leather jackets and a baseball helmet would be proper attire for anyone closely approaching a nest with young!

Despite the long record of nesting great horned owls in Midland, no homeowner has ever been attacked, to our knowledge, except for one attacked by a "rehabbed" owl that had become habituated to humans giving it food. Having a knowledge of the location of the urban owls might help all of us be more aware the remote possibility of getting whacked over the head by an irate owl!