BYWAYS PLUS: DATES! - Desert Magazine of the Southwest

All owls, even this young one still plumed in down, see as well by night as by day.
five eggs are laid. The young are a little larger than
newly-hatched chickens and covered with pure white down.
At about 10 days this white down is replaced by greyish-buff
down. Gradually the first year's plumage forces its way
through the down and within a few weeks they begin to take
on the appearance of the adults. The young birds reach full
size by the time they are four weeks old, but they remain in
the nest at least six or seven weeks and are unable to fly until
they are 10 to 12 weeks old. During these first 10 or 12 weeks
the young are fed and protected by the parents. Once they
begin to fly, though, they start to follow the older birds,
begging for food with a high-pitched scream that is only used
by the young birds to solicit feeding from the adults. It has
been shown that young owls may follow their parents about
begging for food well into September and possibly even
October before they are finally driven away to other hunting
grounds.
The Living Desert Reserve receives several young great
horned owls every year. Even those individuals that are
brought in at less than a week of age defend themselves from
our efforts to take care of them. They bristle up their downy
plumage, spread their wings, snap their bills, and threaten to
attack. Even at a week or two old, their razor-sharp bill and
talons can inflict serious damage.
Hand raising young birds like this takes many hours and a
tremendous amount of food. The diet fed at Living Desert
Reserve includes a commercially prepared bird-of-prey diet,
as well as mice and young rats. Once the young birds have
matured and can fly, they seem anxious to be released into
the wild and will have nothing further to do with their human
"parents."
The adults actively defend their young from predators,
even man. Arthur C. Bent in his Life Histories of North
American Birds of Prey describes visiting a nest:' 'Once I was
savagely attacked while I was climbing to a nest in which the
42
eggs were hatching. I had hardly climbed 10 feet on the big
pine tree when the great brown bird glided past me, swaying
from side to side, her wings partly spread, her plumage
ruffled out, looking as big as a bushel basket, her ears erect,
and snapping her bill furiously, a perfect picture of savage
rage. As I continued upward her mate soon joined her, and
then followed such a demonstration of angry protest as I had
never seen; they flew from tree to tree, dashing past me
repeatedly, too near for comfort, snapping their bills, and
hooting constantly in deep, subdued tones, kr-r-r-oo-ooo,
krrooo-ooo. Only once did they give dieir regular hooting call.
"Once, when I was not looking, I felt the swoop of powerful
wings, then a terrific blow on my shoulder almost knocking
me out of the tree, and I could feel the sharp claws strike
through my clothes. Several times I had to dodge from the
furious attacks. As I neared the nest I felt a stunning blow
behind my ear, which nearly dazed me, and off sailed my hat
a hundred feet away; her sharp talons had struck into my
scalp, making two ugly wounds from which the blood
flowed..."
Great horned owls are so aggressive and powerful that they
often attack and kill surprisingly large prey. They feed
primarily on mammals, with rabbits being the mainstay of
their diet. However, they also take various species of
squirrels, chipmunks, rats, mice, gophers, weasels, skunks,
possums, porcupines, and even small domestic animals
such as cats. In addition to mammals, the owls are not
opposed to taking birds and night-hunting snakes. They are
quite capable of attacking and killing even large hawks.
The owls glide on silent wings searching for prey day or
night for they can see as well during the day as at night.
Sometimes they will perch and wait for prey to pass under
them. When sighted, they drop silently down on the
unsuspecting creature. The animal is grabbed and killed by
the strong talons. like some other birds of prey, great horned
The Desert Magazine/March 1980