American Great Horned Owl Habitats: Barred Body, Cavity Nest, White Egg

Summary: North American great horned owl habitats from Canada, throughout the United States and through Mexico sport barred bodies, cavity nests and white eggs.

great horned owl (Bubo virginianus) near Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park; March 26, 2014: Neal Herbert/Yellowstone National Park (YellowstoneNPS), Public Domain, via Flickr

North American great horned owl habitats agree with arborists, master gardeners and master naturalists through Strigidae family member appetites for insects and snakes within distribution ranges from Canada through Mexico and beyond.

Great horned owls bear the common names hoot and tiger owls as ear-tufted hooters nicknamed tigers by naturalists and the scientific name Bubo virginianus (Virginia owl). Categorized in 1788 by German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin (Aug. 8, 1748-Nov. 1, 1804), they contain Baja California, coastal, desert, eastern, Mexican, mountain, northeastern, northern subspecies. Soundtrack-friendly hoots draw the attention of eery, nature and scary filmmakers while hunting, mating and raising families drive great horned owls from solitary to paired lifestyles.

Twenty-eight-year lifespans expect brushy hillsides, coniferous bogs, marshes and swamps, coniferous, deciduous, riverside or second-growth forests, deserts, orchards, parklands, prairies and semi-wooded slopes near agricultural fields.

November through March optimally facilitate brooding one one- to five-egg clutch, followed by a second if the first fails, in beech, juniper, pine or spruce trees.

Mothers-to-be usually go for abandoned bald eagle, crow, ferruginous hawk, golden eagle, great blue heron, osprey, pileated woodpecker, raven, red-tailed hawk, squirrel or Swainson's hawk nests. Cavity nests in artificial or natural holes or on rocky ledges at 70-foot (21.34-meter) heights house coarse-grained, dull white, elliptical to near-spherical, non- to semi-glossy eggs. Mothers-to-be initiate 26- to 37-day incubations with the first rough, smooth, 2.09- to 2.21-inch (53- to 56-millimeter) by 1.77- to 1.85-inch (45- to 47-millimeter) unmarked egg.

Agro-industrial development, antagonism of red-tailed hawks, parasitism by blackflies, predation of eggs by crows and raccoons and residential construction jeopardize North American great horned owl habitats.

Helpless newborns know fluffy, white down, gray bills and pink legs and skin as sealed-eyed hatchlings and gray-buff-, gray-white or yellow-white plumage eight days after hatching.

Nestlings live with their mothers on food from their fathers while they learn to look around with opened eyes as 10-day-olds and to self-feed as 27-day-olds. They maintain daily contact with their parents, even though they move, as 35-day-olds, into nearby nests, since they manage feathering as 49-day-olds and flight as 70-day-olds. Adults need ducks, fish, foxes, geese, gophers, grouse, hares, insects, jays, mice, muskrats, opossums, orioles, pheasant, porcupines, rabbits, rats, skunks, snakes, squirrels, turkeys, voles and woodpeckers.

North American great horned owl habitats through 13,123.36 feet (4,000 meters) above sea level offer winter-coldest temperatures at minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 51.11 degrees Celsius).

Ash, aspen, bald-cypress, beech, birch, cottonwood, cypress, elm, fir, gum, hemlock, hickory, juniper, larch, maple, palmetto, pine, redwood, spruce and willow protect great horned owl niches.

Barred, brown-gray, mottled upper-parts, barred underparts, large ear tufts, rusty facial disks, white chins and throats and yellow eyes quicken identifications of adult great horned owls. Flight patterns of great horned owl adults reveal barred underparts and broad, dark-arced, long wings for alternately heavy, slow wing beats, predatory swoops and short glides. They suggest 3- to 5-foot (0.9- to 1.6-meter) wingspans, 1.88- to 5.5-pound (0.9- to 2.5-kilogram) tuft-to-tail weights and 18- to 25-inch (46- to 63-centimeter) tuft-to-tail lengths.

North American great horned owl habitats transmit barks, hisses and screams by all adults and whoo-hoo-oo-o hoots by higher-pitched, mating females and, year-round, by lower-pitched males.

great horned owl hatchling emerging from egg in incubator, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Milford Nature City, Junction City, Geary County, northeastern Kansas; March 20, 2012: Mike Watkins/Kansas City District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Kansas City District), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

great horned owl (Bubo virginianus) near Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park; March 26, 2014: Neal Herbert/Yellowstone National Park (YellowstoneNPS), Public Domain, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/80223459@N05/13449706453

great horned owl hatchling emerging from egg in incubator, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Milford Nature City, Junction City, Geary County, northeastern Kansas; March 20, 2012: Mike Watkins/Kansas City District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Kansas City District), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usace-kcd/7006713975/

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