Mammals are favored quarry, particularly rodents and rabbits. These include large insects, amphibians, reptiles, and birds, including, on occasion, Peregrine Falcons, other owls, geese, and herons. This powerful hunter captures a wide range of creatures. The Great Horned Owl is a fearsome nocturnal predator, drifting silently through the night on five-foot-wide wings. Sign up for ABC's eNews to learn how you can help protect birds They favor dense forest near open areas, habitat often shared by their daytime counterparts, Red-tailed Hawks. Accessible at Great Horned Owls are non-migratory and territorial, preferring to remain within a home range of several hundred acres. All Great Horned Owls are cryptically colored and blend with their surroundings while roosting.
This species varies in plumage color and pattern across its broad range, with 15 recognized subspecies. Like the Barn Owl and Short-eared Owl, the Great Horned Owl has a wide distribution, found from the northern boreal forests of Alaska and Canada south through the mountains and deserts of Patagonia - an impressively large portion of the Americas. Although they are sometimes called "ears," plumicorns have nothing to do with the bird's hearing, and scientists are not sure of their exact function. It's speculated that the tufts may help camouflage the Great Horned Owl within its favored forest haunts.
The "horns" atop a Great Horned Owl's head are actually tufts of feathers called plumicorns, meaning “feather horns” in Latin. A Devilish Darker Side?Īlthough this owl may occasionally spook people, it's not a horned devil. But the owl is also seen as a familiar of witches, whose silent flight and spooky calls foretell evil and even imminent death. The “wise old owl” is also a popular motif in children's books and cartoons. In Native American folklore and Greek myth, owls represent wisdom and helpfulness, and have powers of prophecy. This big owl (the second heaviest in North America after the Snowy Owl) is also called the "hoot owl" after its deep, booming call, which sounds like: “Who's a-wake? Me too!” Early naturalists called the Great Horned Owl the "winged tiger" or "tiger of the air" because of its ferocity and hunting skills.
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