Screech owls don't screech! The usual sound is a long drawn-out wail that seems to be part whistle. They like to live around people and especially like orchards or old shade trees. But don't go near a screech owl's nest when there are young ones in it! The parents will think you mean to harm the little ones and may dive at you, snapping their bills. They might even hit you on the head or scratch you. The burrowing owl is a long-legged little fellow who lives on the western prairies. People used to think that prairie dogs, rattlesnakes and owls lived together happily in the same hole. We know now that that couldn't happen. The snake would eat either young owls or young prairie dogs. The owl would eat either young prairie dogs or small snakes. Burrowing owls often take over old prairie dog holes to live in, since it saves them digging their own. When baby burrowing owls are disturbed they make a buzzing sound very much like a rattlesnake. This may be why the owls and snakes have been thought to live together. The burrowing owl stays awake in the daytime and doesn't give a hoot. It says "cack-cack-cack" and "coo-hoo." It hunts in the morning and evening and spends most of the day standing by its burrow and looking around.
The barred owl is the one that usually hoots. But sometimes these owls seems to be jabbering at each other, saying wha-wha, ow-ow, ya-ya, with a mixture of other sounds. Or they may give a diabolical scream. When you are out alone at night and hear any owl, you wish you hadn't!
Some owls lay only a few eggs and hatch them all at once. The female waits until she has laid the last egg before she starts incubating them. Then all the baby birds hatch out together and both parents can work at feeding them. But owls that lay a large number of eggs have to use a different system. They couldn't feed that many tiny babies at one time, as they have to be fed too often. So the mother lays an egg and starts incubating it, and then she keeps on laying eggs a few days apart. No two eggs will hatch at the same time. As more eggs hatch, the older babies have to be fed less often. Of course the father has to feed them all until the last egg is hatched. By that time the oldest chick may be almost ready to fly.
Baby owls are greedy little things. You might see a baby owl stuffed so full that the tail of the last mouse he ate is hanging out of his mouth. He just couldn't get it all down.
Baby barn owls require so much food that they cry and fight for it even while being fed. In twenty minutes one barn owl caught 16 mice, 3 gophers, 1 rat and 1 squirrel for his babies. And he had to keep that up all night! Barn owls raise two broods a year. If the babies aren't out on their own by the time they are 3 months old, the parents force them to leave. Who can blame them?
During rainy weather baby owls are likely to go hungry. The parents cannot fly noiselessly when their wing feathers are wet, so cannot catch as many small animals. They probably can't hear the animals moving about as well when the leaves are wet, either.
Some people don't like owls. Farmers used to nail dead owls up on their barn doors as a hint to other owls to stay away. Because they killed a chicken now and then, and sometimes a songbird, they weren't welcome.
At one time the people on Lord Howe Island, near New Zealand, didn't like owls either. They set out to kill them all, and within a few years they had succeeded. Soon there were rats everywhere. They chewed on the crops before they could be harvested. They nibbled the bark around the fruit trees until they died. Finally the islanders realized that they had made a big mistake in killing the owls. They asked for help, and the San Diego zoo sent them some barn owls. The owls took care of their rat problem.
by Mina Arnold Young |
A study in England in a certain area showed that owls caught 23,980 rodents per square mile each year!
How did owls get their keen sense of hearing, their noiseless feathers, their feet with a swivel toe, and their eyes that can see when it is almost dark? Birds cannot change themselves. Even if they could, they would not know what changes would be best.
The only reasonable explanation for owls is that God knew we needed them, so He gave them just the right equipment for the life they live.