Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
There were other things that I knew about great horned owls, as well. I was an extraordinarily fortu-
nate child in many ways. My father and mother lived on my maternal grandparents' farm while I was
growing up. There my parents read to me extensively, while my grandmother, to my great delight, told
me a wide variety of stories. Like every child, I loved to hear the same stories over and over, and my
absolute favorite was the true story that I called “It Looks Like the Work of an Owl.”
We always had hens on the farm, kept in a hen house at night but roaming freely from dawn to dark.
Many years before, hens began to mysteriously disappear. Then one day my grandfather came across
the partly eaten carcass of the most recent loss. He examined it carefully and then reported to my grand-
mother, “Well, Luella (a nickname for Lucy Ellen), it looks like the work of an owl!”
Grandpa set a trap beside the carcass that night, and when he went to milk the cows the next morning,
there was the owl in the trap. Grandpa was in a hurry to start the morning chores, so he decided to kill
the owl when chores were done. When he returned, however, the owl had departed, leaving one claw in
the trap.
Undeterred, Grandpa reset the trap, and the owl—displaying a noteworthy lack of wisdom—was
once again in the trap the following morning. This time, Grandpa wasted no time in dispatching the
owl! There were no more strange disappearances among the flock of hens thereafter.
Although flocks of free-range hens are relatively uncommon these days, marauding great horned
owls can still cause trouble from time to time. A friend who is a cabinetmaker told me about just such
an incident that took place not many years ago. His shop was connected to the chicken coop, and one
night, while working on some furniture, a great uproar erupted among the hens.
My friend ran outside to the coop's entrance, and by the light coming into the coop from his shop,
he saw a huge owl, wings outspread, clutching a hen. He was afraid to enter the coop for fear the owl
might fly into his face, so he poked a broom inside and vigorously swished it around. This disruption
soon became too much for the owl, which loosed its hold on the hen and departed in an indignant flurry
of wings. The hen recovered, according to my friend, but the attack must have severely traumatized her,
for she never laid another egg!
The great horned is the most widely distributed North American owl, inhabiting the continent coast
to coast from the Arctic in Alaska and part of Canada far down into Mexico. Despite its wide range,
however, the great horned owl is far less common than the barred owl. It's also seldom seen, not be-
cause it's rare, but because it's much more nocturnal than the barred owl.
If the great horned owl is less visible than its barred brethren, it's also far less vocal, both in quantity
and variety of calls. Its most common call is a series of deep, resonant hoots, almost always heard at
night. It can also utter a series of low hoots that sound almost like the cooing of a dove, although deep-
er and throatier. Like most owls, the great horned will also hiss when alarmed or upset. Owing to its
nocturnal habits and infrequent calls, the presence of this big owl often goes undetected.
The great horned owl fully deserves its reputation as a fierce predator, but this attribute is sometimes
exaggerated. For example, one male great horned owl caused all sorts of problems, even attacking hu-
