- Kathleen Scavone
- Posted On
The Living Landscape: Owls – powerful predators
The Owl
By Wendy Videlock
Beneath her nest,
a shrew's head,
a finch's beak
and the bones
of a quail attest
the owl devours
the hour,
and disregards
the rest.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – What is common, but rarely seen, mysterious and heard in Lake County's night hours? Of course, it's the owl.
We have many varieties of these night-dwellers here in our county.
According to McLaughlin Reserve's bird list the following owls have been spotted at the reserve: barn owls, Western screech owl, great horned owl, northern pygmy owl, burrowing owl, long-eared owl, short-eared owl and northern saw-whet owl.
The saw-whet owl doesn't voice a typical owl's hoot, but instead, sends out sequence of whistles that, as its name implies, replicates the sound of a rhythmic saw.
According to the book, “1001 Questions Answered About Birds” the great horned owl has an extremely low range of hearing, and can't hear high-pitched sounds emitted by songbirds, however, it can perceive the mouse's squeak.
Owls are fascinating creatures to study with their swooping, soundless wings, piercing eyesight and their unique accoutrements which allow for their amazing predatory feats: their talons, specialized beaks and sense of sight.
Owls' eyes are able to see not only during the day, but are enlarged to aid in picking out prey in low-light or nighttime situations. These special, tubular eyes are what permit this extra-sensitive eyesight. Like humans, they have binocular vision, while most birds possess monocular sight.
The owl also has a specialized set of muscles in their necks that allow for speedily swiveling his neck 270 degrees of a circle!
These deadly raptors need a large amount of food, and prey on mice, rabbit, skunk and other birds. They possess a high metabolism and can consume up to the amount of their body-weight in prey each day.
Owls don't chew food, but swallow it down in large gulps – feathers, fur and all. Then, their gizzards eliminate the waste in the form of a tidy pellet which resemble an oval fur-ball several inches in size. If you happen upon an owl pellet you will find tiny bones and bits of soft fur all in one tidy package!
Owls have been depicted as symbols of wisdom in many ancient cultures. For example in Greece the goddess of wisdom was symbolized with an owl. In the Celtic tradition owls were linked with stealth, wisdom and also as the source of hidden truths.
However, many Native American tribes connected owls with death, while some, like the Dakotas considered owls as protectors of their warriors.
For more information visit The Owl Pages, http://www.owlpages.com/owls.php?location=North+America , or the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Great_Horned_Owl/id .
Kathleen Scavone, M.A., is an educator, potter, writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora, and Fauna Tour of a California State Park” and “Native Americans of Lake County.” She also writes for NASA and JPL as one of their “Solar System Ambassadors.” She was selected “Lake County Teacher of the Year, 1998-99” by the Lake County Office of Education, and chosen as one of 10 state finalists the same year by the California Department of Education.