As winter fades to spring here in the Sonoran Desert, the evenings have been punctuated with the calls of Great Horned Owls. I’ve tried a couple of times to record them, but their voices are often drowned out by the barking dogs and vehicles.
But a few nights ago, I heard a pair calling loudly from one of my neighbors’ trees. I quickly set up my recorder and went back inside. They continued to call from their perch for several minutes, and then actually flew closer to the mic and called for several minutes more, before finally flying away. When I played back the recording, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that they were calling back and forth with a distant pair of owls.
Great Horned Owls are one of the largest and most widely distributed owls in the Americas. They range from south of the tundra in North America and in the northern half of South America exclusive of the Amazon Basin. The tend to prefer forest edges, which provide meadows or grasslands for hunting and trees for nesting and perching. I remember watching a Great Horned Owl hunting from a cottonwood tree many years ago. It sat on a branch about 30 feet above the ground, periodically dive-bombing the mice below the tree. About half the time if flew back up to the branch with a tiny mouse in its talons.
These large owls feed on pretty much anything they can catch – their diet includes everything from bugs to herons. Most of their prey are medium-sized mammals, like rabbits and hares, but they are also fond of rats, squirrels, and voles, and are known to take porcupines, marmots and skunks. Some owls become skunk specialists, and I’ve run across Great Horned Owls nests with lots of skunk remains below the nest, and an easily detectable aroma of skunk in the air. They even take reptiles, including young alligators, as well as amphibians and fish. And they occasionally make a meal of domestic cats and dogs. They also take birds, often from their nighttime perches. They catch most of their prey while on the wing, or by dropping on it, but occasionally they will land and run it down.
Winter (in the northern hemisphere) is breeding season for the owls, and that is when they do most of the calling. Eggs are laid in early spring, and the young fledge in early summer. Young owls don’t hoot, rather they have a horrendous screech, similar to a barn owls’ call.
Like many nocturnal animals, owls have many myths associated with them. Most of these myths are related to death: First Nations peoples of the Pacific Northwest say that the owl speaks the name of someone who will soon die. Among the First Nations peoples of the southwest, owls often represent the souls of the dead. Owl feathers or feet are used to protect from evil spirits, although in some parts of New Mexico, they are used to put a curse on someone.
Their commonness does not take away from their magic for me. I enjoy hearing the calls of the owls; knowing such a large predator is still out there brings me comfort.
For further reading:
Craven, M. 1973. I heard the owl call my name. Dell Publishing Co., NY.
Recorded with a Sony PCM-M10 and Audio-Technica AT2022 mic with Felmicamps SK3.5 preamp. Recording edited to remove sounds of traffic and barking dogs.