The great horned owls are hooting. It is courting time -- old established couples are arguing about where to nest this year, and young males are actively looking for a female without a mate. Go out at night and listen. Their calls are series of two to three deep hoots.
For years there has been a pair downtown, another one near Hill Park, another pair has nested at ClayDesta, and the west side water tower has had a pair. Somewhere near Lowe's another pair has been recorded.
Listening for the owls is a great excuse to get outside late at night or very early in the morning. City folk should take the opportunity to make the acquaintance of these large, fierce predators. Males and females cannot be separated by their plumage, but the 3 1/2- to 4-pound female is always larger than the 3- to 3 1/2-pound male. Its wing span is 4- to 4 1/2-feet and its distinctive head features include large yellow eyes, two long "horns" or ear tufts, and a white ascot under the throat. The head of an owl with its eyes closed sitting in the shade at the back of a crevice looks much like a cat.
Great horned owls start families in the winter because the young take so long to become independent. Humans in the area may have had the privilege of listening to the love songs of the owls. The female begins the song, "whoo, ooh, ooh, ooh, whoo, whoo." She calls over and over at about 20-second intervals. The male responds, often beginning before she has finished, "whoo, who, who, whoo, whooo." Sometimes they sing for an hour or more.
Great horned owls do not build their own nests. If available, they use an old hawk nest. In a 1938 National Museum Bulletin, Arthur Bent cites two instances of great horned owls using squirrel nests and there has been such a nest near Hill Park. In Midland County owls have nested in such diverse sites as the steel beams of a large metal shed, the top of a bale of hay under a shelter, a hole in the side of a caliche pit and on the ground at the base of a pecan tree.
A great horned owl will catch and eat almost any creature its size or smaller including birds, mammals, snakes and insects. It will hunt at night, taking what is available and easiest to catch. This includes rodents, rabbits, skunks, doves, ducks and other owls. It swallows its prey whole or in big chunks, regurgitating the hair, feathers and bones in a large pellet. A person can determine what the owl has been eating by dissecting the pellet. Someone needs to examine some pellets from these city owls. The most common prey item in the area would seem to be white-winged doves.
The owls' hunting skills are evident when there are young to be fed. Bent described one nest where the adult owls brought 113 full-grown rats to their young within a week, and another nest where the surplus food the young did not eat in a week weighed 18 pounds.
The adults are very protective of the nest and the area around it and have been known to attack human passing by. The attacks are dangerous and unexpected. The owl flies on silent wings, makes no warning calls and attempts to sink its talons into the head or back of the offender. A leather jacket and baseball helmet would be proper attire for anyone closely approaching a nest with young.
Despite the long record of nesting great horned owls in Midland, no homeowner ever has been attacked -- to our knowledge -- except for one person who was attacked by a "rehabbed" owl that had become habituated to humans giving it food. Having a knowledge of the location of the urban owls might help all of us be more aware of the remote possibility of getting whacked over the head by an irate owl!
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