Hooters

In my woods live my owls.

The Great Horned Owl for sure.  Perhaps the American Barn Owl.  And either the Eastern or Western Screech Owl.

The Great Horned Owl

This guy is very large - I have a personal measurement unit:  it's three times the size of a Sweet Hen.  Three times the size of my cat, that is.  My former cat, that is.  My cat which is now a Great Horned Owl (GH).

According to an owl book, it likes "second growth, open woodlands, scrub with rocky areas".  That describes BL to a T.  It eats mammals (rabbits, cats, voles, rats) and birds, reptiles (lizards, gekkos), amphibians (frogs, toads), spiders and insects.

As with almost all owls, the females are larger than the males.  And they live upwards of 28 years.  So I hope mine is around for awhile.

The Hoot:  Owls don't open their bills when they call.  Instead, their whole body gets into it.  Their throat balloons out - and many owls have white throats to catch the attention of other owls.  The GH leans forward with tail up on each syllable.  They are deep, booming hoos, usually between 3 and 5.  And each has their own unique call of syllables, pitch, timbre, etc.

The American Barn Owl

I haven't seen this one yet, but it's likely to be here.  It prefers open countryside with sparse trees, so perhaps BL is too thick with trees for it.  It's food sure is here, though - voles, rats, mice, bats.

It's call is a drawn out tremulous screech.




Speaking of screeches...

 




There is either an Eastern or Western screech owl here as well.  (The photos show a brown eastern and grey western, but either species can vary between brown and grey.)
Their call does sound like a woman screaming far away.  And it was as unmistakeable to me as the coyotes was from a dogs the first time I heard it.  The owl books describes the Eastern call as a "toad-like quavering trill lasting 3-5 seconds, ends abruptly, repeats".  The Western is a "short trill, followed immediately by a longer one", rising then falling again in pitch.  Annoyingly, I can't tell which call I'm hearing, even with these descriptions.

These are smaller than the GH - about Sweet Hen size.  The first one came to visit just after Sweet Hen became the GH.  They eat the same, but smaller things - mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects.
It was on a juniper branch just about 10 feet from me and my house.  I went out to take a look.  It just stared back at me.  It must not have been alarmed at me, since it didn't adopt the tall-thin stance that so many owls do when threatened. (Sorry- I just spent 5 minutes trying to find a photo of this.. but apparently everyone who photographs owls never make them feel threatened.)

They live a little less as well - only about 20 years for the Eastern and only about 12 years for the Western. (In general, the bigger the owl, the longer it lives.)