Tag Archives: Owls

Owl Prowls in the USA

Your guide presses a finger to her closed lips and the adventure begins. You follow her in silence as she leads your group into a dark forest that seems like the setting for a fairytale. Moonlight slips through tree branches, illuminating a path. When a shape shifts among the shadows, you stop to stare. Your guide calls into the dark, making. She makes a series of whistled hoots that speed up, like a dropped ball settling on the ground.

Silence.

Your guide calls a second time. Again, silence.

When your guide makes another series of hoots, this time there is an answer in the forest. Moving from shadows into the moonlight, a bird appears. Its wings flap with a brushing sound so subtle you aren’t certain you heard it. The owl glides in total silence and lands on a branch above you. Suddenly, the benefit of exploring the wilderness with a guide becomes clear. This moment, curated by expert naturalists with a keen understanding of the ecosystem around them, is unforgettable.

You will recall the large eyes blinking among the branches. You will remember how these inhabitants of a dark world were illuminated by the guide’s spotlight, their bodies glowing as they glided past you and vanished. Whenever you glimpse a forest at night, you will know it is filled with life that stirs when the sun disappears. You will listen for owls, and you may even call back to them.

An Evolved Species

Evolution has equipped owls with fascinating adaptations. Velvety feathers with serrated leading edges enable silent flight, minimizing turbulence and dampening noise. Owls can swivel their heads up to 270 degrees, a feat facilitated by their unique neck structure with extra vertebrae and ample blood vessels. The forward-facing orientation of their eyes provides powerful binocular vision, giving owls exceptional depth perception for hunting.

Owls’ hearing abilities are equally extraordinary. The strategic placement of ear openings at different heights allows sounds to reach each ear at slightly different times, aiding in precise prey localization. The circular arrangement of feathers that forms an owl’s facial disc funnels sound to the bird’s ears, enabling the hunter to detect subtle movements. An owl knows when a mouse is sneaking through grass or a vole is tunneling beneath the snow.

Owl Prowls in the United States

Those lucky enough to experience an owl prowl report feeling intensely alive and closely connected to nature. Fortunately, you don’t need to travel far to find awe-inspiring owls. 

The United States is home to 19 owl species, each among the most magnificent birds on Earth. Prowling for them, whether in deserts of the Southwest during spring or in snow-buried boreal forests in winter, provides a fulfilling adventure not far from home.

Owling in Southeast Arizona

Many Naturalist Journeys’ travelers have enjoyed superb owling. Take for example the Southeast Arizona: Spring Sky Island Sampler Tour. In May of 2023, the group encountered a whopping seven owl species. During nighttime owl prowls, the group spotted a Whiskered Screech-Owl, while Western Screech-Owls hooted their bouncing ball song.

A spotlight illuminated a ghostly Barn Owl hunting over a field. In a sycamore tree, the group observed a Northern Pygmy-Owl, featuring false eyespots that confuse prey and predators alike. Spotted Owls were heard and seen roosting. Baby Great Horned Owls, near fledgling, jostled in a nest cavity in Portal, where Naturalist Journeys has its headquarters. Finally, the group was treated to great views of the world’s smallest owl, a raptor no larger than a sparrow, the Elf Owl

Naturalist Journeys hosts guided tours in Southeast Arizona all throughout the year. Discover the bustle of spring migration, a rainbow of hummingbirds, wintering Sandhill Cranes and even a pair of resident Elegant Trogon along the way. And, of course, owls galore!

Learn more about Arizona’s Sky Islands here.

Minnesota’s Winter Wonderland

In February of 2025, participants on the inaugural Minnesota: Winter Owling Tour will search for Snowy, Great Gray, Northern Hawk, and Boreal Owls. 

During these winter owl prowls, you can look for Snowy Owls, their pale plumage camouflaging their bodies. Their feathered feet are like fluffy slippers that insulate their skin from cold snow. 

The Great Gray Owl that haunts the forests of the north is among the world’s largest owls by wingspan and body length, but weighs a mere two and a half pounds. Though this owl seems like a big ball of feathers, its powerful body can punch through hard-packed snow to snatch prey. 

The Northern Hawk Owl is another impressive hunter of boreal forests. It has a distinctly long tail and behaves more like a hawk than an owl. While perched atop solitary trees in daylight, this predator can sight prey up to a half mile away. 

The elusive Boreal Owl is also a sit-and-wait predator that hunts from perches. But it listens at night for creatures scurrying on bare forest floor beneath trees and tunneling through snow. This small owl with a square head peers through giant yellow eyes into the dark.    

Endless Opportunities

Optional owl prowls add intrigue to several other US tours. From seeking a Great Gray Owl in Yellowstone National Park, to searching for Great Horned Owls on a Kansas tallgrass prairie, to prowling the ponderosa pine forests of South Dakota’s Black Hills, venturing into the night world can be as exciting as traveling to an unknown country.

The nocturnal wilderness awaits, and the owls are calling.

Owling is One of the Most Rewarding Reasons to Stay Up Late

Whoo Doesn’t Love an Owl?

Owling, aka owl-watching, is one of many family-based birding specialties, on par with hawk-watching, hummingbirding and kingfishering.

OK, we made up the term kingfishering, but the family Alcedinidae, the kingfishers, is another of the most beloved and “collected” in birding, and the subject of our NEXT blog.

But back to the Strigiformes and owling: the often dimly lit, (and let’s face it, frequently futile) search for nocturnal raptors whoo have captured the imagination (and cut into the sleep) of many an avid birder on vacation or birding tour.

True & Barn Owls: Strigidae & Tytonidae

  • Owling is a family-specific type of birding
  • Owling is a family-specific type of birding

Our Queensland’s Wet Tropics Tour, Aug. 13 – 23, 2023, offers chances to see both the Lesser Sooty Owl and Rufous Owl.

Owls and Owling are Everywhere!

Ranging from 5 to 28 inches in length, owls are found on every continent save Antarctica and for millennia have been inspiring myths and legends of awe, fear and admiration.

Since most owls are either nocturnal or crepuscular, an owling trip is typically launched near dusk, a shot in the dark in more ways than one. Owl unpredictability is one thing that makes owling so satisfying when we do get see them. An owl sighting always feels as though fortune has smiled.

A cooperative Elf Owl is a marvelous thing on a Big Bend, TX tour. Photo Credit: Dave Mehlman

Here’s how guide Hugh Simmons narrated one Elf Owling foray in Texas’s Davis State Park:

“From recent negative reports, our chances of success didn’t seem high, but we managed to be in the right place at exactly the right time and were rewarded by brief views of two owls as they flew out from their daytime roost in a woodpecker hole in a wooden utility post – a very satisfactory end to the day!”

An Elf Owl photographed in Portal, Arizona, by Bettina Arrigoni, licensed through Wikimedia Commons.

We go searching for owls on every one of the six continents they inhabit, and they are always a guest favorite when we do manage to see them. Owls often have large faces, stocky bodies and soft feathers to help muffle their predatory flights. Let’s examine some of the owl characteristics that make them special, traits that can vary widely from species to species and place to place.

Are Owls Super Smart? Or Is It Just the Big Eyes & Glasses?

While there are MANY things to love about owls, their Western reputation for being super-intelligent is probably not deserved.

Spectacled Owl are among the night residents we see in Panama birding
Spectacled Owl. Photo Credit: Jerome Foster.

So while the large, tropical Spectacled Owl we frequently see on our Belize, Mexico and Central American tours may look like it just came back from the library, as a group, owls are considered to have below average intelligence. As fierce and mighty hunters, they more closely match up with their reputations among many Native American tribes as harbingers and bringers of death. Maybe the widespread availability of Owl Cams has influenced our opinion, but reducing owls to a caricature of killing machines seems a bit harsh!

The Wise Owl Myth, Explained

Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, reputedly carried a Little Owl on her shoulder, which she said helped her see in the dark and into blind spots, and that association may be how owls came to symbolize wisdom.

Athena and her “Little Owl,” she said helped her to see better. Photo Credit: The MET via Wikimedia Commons.

(Fittingly, we saw Little Owl in Lesvos, Greece on our most recent tour there with guide Gerard Gorman. For your own chance to see Little Owl in its homeland of legend, our Lesvos, Greece: Migration! tour returns in April of 2023.) Photo Credit: Len Worthington via Creative Commons.

Athena’s story checks out in that owls have superior low-light vision and hearing. But if you’re looking for the smartest of birds, those are the social ones, like the corvids and parrots, according to researchers. Frequent interactions may have honed social birds’ wits and enlarged their brains. Corvids also benefit from having “long childhoods,” continuing to live with their parents “in training” for up to four years!

Owls are Loners for Life

Meanwhile, owlets are born helpless and dependent, yet not long after they fledge, just weeks or months later, begin leading solitary lives.

This Spectacled Owlet is unmistakably a juvenile with its plumage! Photo Credit: Rhian Springett via Wikimedia Commons

While many people know that a gathering of owls is called a ‘parliament,’ they are such a lonesome and territorial species that it’s hard to imagine when the term might ever be needed in conversation.

Owls are Hunting Machines

Specialized hunters with massive eyes and highly developed and calibrated ears, owls devote almost two-thirds of their brain’s modest volume to the tasks of seeing and hearing, notes WorldBirds.com, leaving little capacity for learning new things.

Some Owls are Smarter Than Others

Nevertheless, some species do exhibit clever and creative feeding strategies, including the Burrowing Owl, often spotted on our Texas, Arizona and Oregon’s Woodpecker Wonderland tours. They routinely set out bait for their insect prey, including bits of fresh cow pies. When a dung beetle comes by attracted by the smell of lunch, they get eaten, University of Florida researchers say.

Owl Calls: Hoots, Hisses, and Who Cooks for You?

Another ingenious adaptation of the Burrowing Owl is its ability to mimic a rattlesnake’s rattle. The Burrowing Owl exhibits this rattly hiss in states like Arizona and Texas, where it competes for burrows with rattlers, desert tortoises and rodents like kangaroo rats and ground squirrels. Rather than excavating their own homes, Burrowing Owl prefers to steal and defend a burrow, and their snake-y vocal imitations help them do that.

For a more quintessential “hooting” call, the Great Horned Owl is the go-to soundtrack for moviemakers hoping to evoke a night in the woods. Widely distributed in North and South America, we frequently see this lovely owl in Arizona and Brazil, where our next tour to the Pantanal is Oct. 11–21, 2022. There are resident Great Horned Owls at one of our favorite accommodations in the world, the Casa de San Pedro B&B, where we stay on our Southeast Arizona Sky Island Fall Sampler Nov. 3 – 10, 2022.

Great Horned Owl taken on our Brazil’s Pantanal trip by Don Cooper.

One of the most iconic and unmistakable owl calls is “who cooks for you?,” which is what the Barred Owl seems to be saying. A North American owl, we often see Barred Owl on our Oregon and Texas tours. Though they hunt at night, they are more active during the day than many other owl species.

Horned, Long-eared and Short-eared: Not Really Ears!

The feather tufts sported by the Horned, Long-Eared and Short-Eared Owl are often mistaken for ears, though they are not even in the vicinity of their true ears. These articulated tufts on the tops of owls’ heads are believed to be part signaling device, part camouflage. Scientists have observed that Short-eared Owls, which we often see on our Journey to the Galapagos cruise (next departure with space Jan. 15 – 27, 2023), tend to be found in more open areas, like grasslands and near the ocean. Longer-tufted owls, like the Long-eared Owl, which we have chances to see on our Nov. 5 – 11 California Birding and Wine tour, tend to live in forests, where a more exaggerated profile may be needed to distinguish them from denser surrounding foliage.

Real Owl Ears are Hidden, Sometimes Offset and Always Amazing!

If someone who is observant is said to be hawkeyed, someone with keen hearing should be called owl-eared, because owls have BOTH the best low-light vision and hearing of any bird. The flat, disc-like faces are part of its hearing toolkit, directing sound to its true ears, which can be found behind the eyes and beneath their feathers. Many owls have ears that are offset, which they use to triangulate which direction a sound is coming from.

What the Color of Owl Eyes Tells Us

Besides being extremely large and cylindrically shaped so as to best capture light, owl eyes come in a variety of striking colors. The color of an owl’s eye is connected to what time of day they are hunting. The darkest of eyes denotes a night-time hunter, orange eyed-owls tend to be crepuscular —hunting at dusk or dawn — and those with yellow eyes are the diurnal, daytime owls.

To give just one example, yellow-eyed Snowy Owls are daylight hunters. Their soft white feathers provide camouflage and sound-o-flage, helping them sneak up on their prey in broad daylight. Even their feet are covered with feathers, soft slippers to help muffle the incoming threat of sharp talons. We hope to see Snowy Owl on our Alaska tours and our Washington Winter Birding tour, next departure Jan. 20 – 28, 2023.

Snowy Owl feathers even cover their feet to help muffle the sound of their approach. Males and older birds may be all white, while females have more brown mottling. Photo Credit: Greg Smith

Largest, Smallest, and Not-That-Quiet

Because they are exceptions, not only in their huge and small size, we’ve saved for last the largest and smallest owls, which share the unusual trait of being uncharacteristically noisy.

The Great Gray Owl is the longest of owl species, averaging up to 28 inches in length. Anyone who has seen this majestic owl, like our Yellowstone National Park guests often do, comes away with a sense of wonder (and some great photos, too! No telephoto needed with a bird this large.)

Great Gray Owl taken on our Yellowstone National Park tour by guest Gary Stone.

But the endangered Blakiston’s Fish-Owl is considered the world’s largest owl, because it us much more massive, with females weighing up to 10 pounds, and because its wingspan, which can surpass 6 feet, is the largest of any owl. We have great opportunities to see this highly range-restricted bird on our Jan 9 – 23, 2023 Japan Birding and Nature tour, along with Red-Crowed Crane and Japanese Snow Monkey. Since Blakiston’s Fish-Owl’s prey is underwater, being silent isn’t as important, which helps explain why their feathers aren’t as soft and downy as owls that hunt mammals.

Owling is a family-specific type of birding
Blakiston’s Fish Owl. Photo Credit: Takashi Muramatsu via Creative Commons.

At the other end of the spectrum, the smallest and arguably the cutest of all owls is the Elf Owl, which is always a treat for our guests on Texas Big Bend & Hill Country tours as well as our Southeast Arizona tours. Standing about 5 inches tall and roosting in tiny stolen cavities, the Elf Owl is very active and very noisy around dusk, when its persistent peeping offers helpful clues to bird guides trying to find them!

Elf Owl are among the birds and animals we may see on our Arizona birding and nature tours.
Elf Owls are cavity nesters, offering them protection from the chill of desert nights. Photo Credit: Woody Wheeler

Elf Owls do have soft feathers on the leading edge of their wings, so they can be quiet when they want to. Though they are desert dwellers, they prefer riparian habitats.

Uganda and Tanzania are very Owly

We have not yet mentioned Africa, which would be a terrible oversight, because the continent has some wonderful owl species. Our Uganda and Tanzania tours in particular are great places to see owls, including Verreaux’s Eagle-Owl which can be seen on both! Our next Uganda tour with space available is Grand Uganda: Fabulous Birds and Mammals, July 15 – 31, 2023. Our next Tanzania Wildlife and Birding Safari tour is Jan. 30 – Feb. 11, 2023.

Owling is a family-specific type of birding
Verreaux’s Eagle-Owl. Photo Credit: Dominic Sherony via Wikimedia Commons.