Brown, Gray or Red Eastern Screech-Owl Habitats: Cavity Nest, White Egg

Summary: North American screech-owl habitats across and inside eastern United States' borders get brown, gray or red bodies from white eggs in cavity nests.

left: gray-colored Eastern screech owl (Megascops asio); Quogue Wildlife Refuge, Suffolk County, Long Island South Shore, southeasternmost New York; Sunday, April 2, 2006, 10:21: Wolfgang Wander, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons
right: red-colored Eastern screech owl; Saturday, Oct. 15, 2011, 10:36: Greg Hume, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

North American eastern screech-owl habitats adjust to cultivation through Strigidae family member appetites for insects and snakes and to naturalism through distribution ranges from Canada, through the eastern United States, into Mexico.

Eastern screech-owls bear their common name for whinnying east of the Rocky Mountains and the scientific name Megascops asio as Greek for great screech-owl horned owl. Landscaping-friendly biogeographies and soundtrack-friendly calls consolidate eastern screech-owls, described by Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1787) in 1758, as icons of wildland-urban interfaces. Mating and raising families to physical independence and sexual maturity in suburban and urban gardens and parks draw eastern screech-owls from solitary to paired life cycles.

Thirteen-year lifespans expect farm woodlots, semi-shaded orchards, stream edges, swampy woodlands and wooded lowlands away from mountain forests for nocturnal existences and for occasional daytime roosting.

Parents-to-be gather no lining for cavity nests, sometimes with pre-existing chips, feathers, fur, leaves or rubble, 5 to 30 feet (1.52 to 9.14 meters) above ground. Cavity nests house elliptical to spherical, fine-grained, 1.34- to 1.42-inch- (34- to 36-millimeter-) long, 1.14- to 1.29-inch- (29- to 33-millimeter-) wide, pure white, semi-glossy, smooth eggs. Mothers-to-be, with the first, second or third egg, initiate 21- to 34-day incubations of eggs laid at two- to three-day intervals while fathers-to-be implement family food-foraging.

Barn, barred, hoot, long-eared, short-eared, snowy or sooty owls, black rat snakes, bobcats, hawks, mink, opossums, otters, raccoons, ringtails, skunks, snakes and weasels jeopardize North American eastern screech-owl habitats.

Helpless hatchlings know a first, thick down that keeps everything, to clawed toes, white and a second that keeps underparts white and upper-parts olive to umber. They live with their mothers on food from their fathers for two weeks after hatching even though they learn to look for their own as 10-day-olds. They move away from downy coats into downy feathers as two- to three-week-olds into nearby homes as four-week-olds and into physical independence as 12- to 14-weeks-olds. Adults need bats, crayfish, doves, earthworms, finches, fish, flycatchers, frogs, grouse, insects, jays, lizards, mice, moles, rabbits, rats, snakes, songbirds, squirrels, swallows, thrushes, waxwings and woodpeckers.

North American eastern screech-owl habitats up to 4,921.26 feet (1,500 meters) above sea level offer winter-coldest temperatures at minus 45 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 42.77 degrees Celsius).

Nest-, roost- and shelterbelt-friendly apple, ash, baldcypress, birch, cottonwood, elm, fir, gum, hemlock, hickory, locust, maple, oak, pecan, pine, sugarberry, sycamore and willow protect eastern screech-owls.

High metabolic requirements below 23 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 5 degrees Celsius) and low severe winter survival rates qualify as red, not brown or gray, morph hallmarks. Brown-, gray- or red-bodied adults reveal dark gray-barred, rounded short wings, ear tufts, feathered legs, short tails, streaked underparts, white-spotted inner wing feathers and yellow eyes. Low, steady, straight flight on 19- to 24-inch (48.26- to 60.96-centimeter) wingspans suggest 5- to 7-ounce (141.75- to 198.45-gram), 6.5- to 10-inch (16.51- to 25.4-centimeter) adults.

North American eastern screech-owl habitats inside and just across the eastern United States' borders teem with higher-pitched female, lower-pitched male barks, descending whinnies, screeches and trills.

Eastern screech owl (Megascops asio) with four eggs; Richland County, central South Carolina; Monday, April 1, 2013: Hunter Desportes (Hunter-Desportes), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

gray-colored Eastern screech owl (Megascops asio); Quogue Wildlife Refuge, Suffolk County, Long Island South Shore, southeasternmost New York; Sunday, April 2, 2006, 10:21: Wolfgang Wander, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eastern_Screech_Owl.jpg
red-colored Eastern screech owl; Saturday, Oct. 15, 2011, 10:36: Greg Hume, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EasternScreechOwl-Rufous.jpg

Eastern screech owl (Megascops asio) with four eggs; Richland County, central South Carolina; Monday, April 1, 2013: Hunter Desportes (Hunter-Desportes), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/hdport/8739534208

For further information:

Baicich, Paul J; and Harrison, Colin J.O. Nests, Eggs, and Nestlings of North American Birds. Second edition. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, Princeton Field Guides, 2005.

Baird, Spencer F. (Fullerton); Robert Ridgway. 1874. "On Some New Forms of American Birds: Scops asio, var. Floridanus Ridgway." Bulletin of the Essex Institute, vol. V (January-December 1873), no. 12: 200. Salem MA: Salem Press.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/8786342

Cassin, John. 1854. "2. Scops mccallii." Illustrations of the Birds of California, Texas, Oregon, British and Russian America, pages 180-181. Philadelphia PA: J.B. Lippincott & Co.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/27214301

Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia, 2nd edition. Volumes 8-11, Birds I-IV, edited by Michael Hutchins, Jerome A. Jackson, Walter J. Bock and Donna Olendorf. Farmington Hills MI: Gale Group, 2002.

Linnaeus, Carl. 1758. "3. Strix asio." Systema Naturae per Regna Tria Naturae, Secundum Classes, Ordines, Genera, Species, cum Characteribus, Differentiis, Synonymis, Locis, Tomus I, Editio Decima, Reformata: 92. Holmiae [Stockholm, Sweden]: Laurentii Salvii [Laurentius Salvius].
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/764490

Peterson, Alan P., M.D. "Buteo jamaicensis (Gmelin) 1788." Zoonomen: Zoological Nomenclature Resource > Birds of the World -- Current Valid Scientific Avian Names > Strigiformes > Strigidae > Striginae > Megascops.
Available @ http://www.zoonomen.net/avtax/stri.html

Ridgway, Robert. June 1877. "Scops asio, ε maxwelliae, Ridgway, MSS." Field and Forest, vol. II, no. 12: 213-214. Washington DC: The Columbia Press.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/36349153

Ridgway, Robert. 1914. "Otus asio hasbroucki Ridgway." Bulletin of the United States National Museum, no. 50, part VI: 694. Washington DC: Government Printing Office.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/7755048

"The 2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map." The National Gardening Association > Gardening Tools > Learning Library USDA Hardiness Zone > USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map.
Available @ https://garden.org/nga/zipzone/2012/