Strip away man's superstitions and misconceptions about them and you'll
find that owls remain truly fascinating birds.
Of the nearly 9,000 kinds of birds in the world, only about 150 are owls. In total numbers of individuals, they make up a small percentage of our birds, yet no group has been more entwined in man's history and folklore.
Owls are among the few birds depicted on cave walls by prehistoric man. They were treated with religious respect by the Greeks and Romans, who credited them with great wisdom and knowledge.
OwIs were also persecuted because they were thought to be omens of mischance and death. In medieval Europe, an owl hooting from a housetop at night meant the person inside was about to die. An owl screeching at a baby's birth foretold that baby's life as a witch, or its death.
Owls have always been associated with witchcraft and Halloween. "Eye of owl" was one of the ingredients in witch's brew. Witches used owls as instruments of death and destruction. Even the American Indian connected owls with dying, calling death "crossing the owl's bridge."
Today, we know that in spite of their screaming and demonic laughter in the dark, owls are not evil agents. We also know that even though they look self assured and stately, owls are not particularly intelligent. During the past 100 years, scientists have stripped away many of man's superstitions and misconceptions about owls and have revealed them as the fascinating and useful creatures they truly are.
As predators, owls serve an important role in controlling the numbers of the animals which they eat-including mice, rats and rabbits-which might otherwise overrun the earth. In the process, they tend to select the easiest to catch-slower, weaker or diseased individuals-thus forging a stronger and healthier prey population. The number of prey required to support each owl is so great that there simply cannot be very many owls. For this reason, owls can quite easily be forced toward extinction should their environment deteriorate.
Of the four kinds of owls that reside in Missouri year round, only the great horned owl has a thriving population. The remainder are thought to be generally declining in numbers. This is due in part to the destruction of nesting and feeding areas, shooting and trapping, and the use of insecticides and rat poisons. The pesticides may either eliminate the owl's prey or become concentrated until they reach levels that kill the owls or damage their eggs.
Owls, like other birds of prey, have talons for catching prey and hooked beaks for tearing it apart. Owls, however, are only distantly related to their daytime counterparts. They are much more closely related to other nocturnal birds like whip-poor-wills.
The predator life style requires special adaptations, and owls display a variety of these. Their nocturnal character, for example, makes it easier for them to hunt the mice and other small mammals that are also active at night.
An owl's huge eyes gather a great deal of light, thus providing excellent night vision. In fact, a great horned owl's eyes are nearly as large as a man's.
Unlike other birds, owl eyes look forward, and each eye therefore sees the same object from two different angles. This produces three-dimensional perception, similar to humans', making it easier to pinpoint prey and perches and branches as owls fly about in the dark. Unlike a human's, an owl's eyes are fixed in their sockets. An owl must therefore swivel its head to focus on different objects. It can do this with amazing quickness.
The ear openings also are directed forward and are shielded beneath downy feathers within the owl's facial disk. Some owls have ear like tufts of feathers, but these have nothing to do with hearing. The facial disk itself serves to focus sound waves into the ears. Strangely, the ear opening on the right is higher than the one on the left. Each ear therefore receives sound from a slightly different angle. This provides owls three-dimensional hearing in addition to three dimensional vision. Experiments have shown this sense to be so keen that barn owls can locate prey in total darkness by hearing alone.
To aid in nighttime hunting, owls are gifted with silent flight. This results from tiny serrations along the leading edge of the flight feathers that reduce the sound of flowing air. Coupled with this, owls use a surprise attack. Having located their prey while on the wing or from a perch, they fly in quickly, feet first. Killing is rapid, and the victim is usually carried in the feet or beak to a perch or nest where it is devoured.
Large prey is torn apart with talons and beak. Small morsels, such as mice, are swallowed whole. Hours later, indigestible bones, fur and feathers are coughed up in firm, cylindrical one- to two-inch pellets. Sometimes dozens of these pellets can be found under a favorite perch or nest. By identification of the remains in the pellets, the owl's food habits can be studied. The pellets beneath one perch contained the parts of 1,987 field mice, 656 house mice, 210 rats, 92 blackbirds and four frogs.
Today, conservationists recognize the values of owls and other birds of prey, and they are protected by strict laws and harsh penalties. In 1982, a northwest Missouri man received a $200 fine and a 30day prison sentence for killing an owl. It is also illegal to have an owl in captivity-alive or dead.
Four kinds of owls live in Missouri year round and the great horned owl is the only one whose population is not declining.
The owls on the illustration are displayed in proper size relative to each other.
Each spring and summer, well-meaning people pick up and try to raise baby owls found on the ground or on low perches, believing them to be orphaned or in danger. It is normal for owls to leave the nest before they can fly. Their parents feed them regularly, although they may not be around at the moment. And baby owls are adept at defending themselves from danger.
It is illegal for anyone without a permit to pick up a baby owl. Captive owls often become sick and die. Even those few that are reared are likely to be social misfits that can never return to their proper place in the wild.
There are several things, however, that you can do to benefit owls:
- Inform the Conservation Department or U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service if you know of someone who has killed or disturbed owls or who has a live or dead owl in possession.
- Retain large, hollow trees or old buildings when possible-especially if owls are nesting in them. Protect all nesting sites.
- Place nesting boxes for barn owls and screech owls.
- If you must use pesticides or mouse and rat poisons, use conservative amounts with care. Owls can control your rodent pests to a degree if you encourage them to live around you
Of the 18 owl species in North America, eight are native to Missouri or visit here.
