Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE ROLLER-LIKE BIRDS

THE ROLLERS AND THEIR ALLIES

THE OWLS

Great Horned Owl

The genus Bubo is a large one, embracing not less than twenty-five or thirty forms, and is pretty generally distributed throughout the world, excepting Australia. They are subject to a considerable amount of local variation, which has given rise to a number of well-marked geographical races.

The typical form, the Great Horned Owl par excellence (B. virginianus), is a splendid bird between eighteen and twenty-five inches in length, with the plumage moderately dark-colored, the dusky markings more extensive or more numerous, while the face is usually more or less rusty. It is found throughout eastern North America, ranging south to eastern Mexico.

It frequents especially the heavily limbered districts, and so long as these conditions prevail it is a fairly common species, but with the leveling of the forests, the usual accompaniment of civilization, it has become rarer. It is an unsociable and solitary bird, except during the breeding season, and rarely allows another of the same species to remain in the vicinity of its range.”In disposition,”says Dr. Fisher,”it is fierce and untamable, and in point of strength and courage is inferior to none of our rapacious birds. It is so savage and seemingly so devoid of the confidence usually shown by birds of prey kept in confinement that it is with the greatest difficulty that it can be tamed even when taken young from the nest.

It is morose and sullen, lacks affection for its keepers, and will often fly viciously at any one who attempts to handle it or enter the apartment in which it is confined.”While it is mainly nocturnal in its habits it can see well in daylight, and may often be seen flying on dark cloudy days, and during the nesting season probably hunts day or night indifferently. It is the most powerful and voracious of our Owls, its great size and fierce disposition making it a veritable tiger among birds. Its food is of great variety, consisting of birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, crustaceans, and insects. Among the birds most frequently taken may be mentioned all kinds of poultry, Grouse, Quail, Doves, Wild Ducks, and even Hawks, Crows, and other Owls fall its victims. Dr. P. R. Hoy, of Racine, Wisconsin, received a Great Horned Owl which he placed in a large enclosure containing a Bald Eagle.

The next morning the eagle was dead, having been despatched by the Owl during the night. Among mammals, hares, rabbits, squirrels, skunks, opossums, and small rodents help to fill out its bill of fare. Wherever food is plenty it often contents itself with simply eating the heads of its victims, and thus wipes out whole families of birds in a night. Dr. C. Hart Merriam states that one of these Owls has been known to decapitate three Turkeys and several chickens in a single night, leaving their bodies uninjured and fit for the table.

These voracious habits make them detested by poultry raisers and sportsmen, and no opportunity is neglected to destroy them; but as the depredations are committed at night it is not always easy to capture them. Of the hundred and twenty-seven stomachs examined by Dr. Fisher thirty-one contained poultry or game birds; thirteen, mice; sixty-five, other mammals; one, fish; ten, insects; and seventeen were empty.

 

 

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