Article Contributed on: 2/20/2008 12:29:28 PM
This time of year you can expect to see Great Horned Owls outside during daylight hours; late mornings and late afternoons/early evenings. This is the time of year when people call us because they're worried that something might be wrong with these big birds, not easily missed, especially if they're being mobbed by smaller birds! Actually, there's nothing wrong at all with them, usually. This time of year is GHO breeding season and they're very active right now.
The GHO is the largest owl we have in Colorado. Although you may never have seen one, the GHO is a very common bird, found throughout North America, and even Central and South America. The GHO is a year-'round resident in our State and doesn't migrate. This bird can be found in urban and suburban areas as well as forests and the plains. The plumage color varies in these owls, with some owls being quite dark and others much lighter, sometimes almost white. The plumage is an adaptation that allows the bird camouflage to blend in with its surroundings, like the bark of the tree it roosts in or the sparse surroundings on the plains. If you're out owling, look for a pile of pellets underneath a big tree, likely a pine tree, and then carefully look up high. You might have the opportunity to see one of these magnificent birds!
The GHO is also a very efficient predator whose only predator is humans and development, if the bird is healthy. The GHO is the only animal known to regularly eat skunks (no sense of smell) and just about anything is fair game to the owl, including other birds (and smaller owls-yikes!) small and medium-sized animals of ALL kinds, and frogs and reptiles. These birds will go into chicken coops for chickens. So please make sure any critter you keep outdoors at night has protection from the GHO! They will also toodle into the shallows of ponds and marshy areas for food.
In the next several weeks young GHOs will start to hatch, and then to grow and fledge. State and federal laws mandate that these birds and their nests are not to be disturbed. Just like any bird, if you find one of these youngsters out of the nest or having a problem, please call us or the Division of Wildlife for help. Sometime it's just a matter of a trained person placing the baby back in the nest. However, if the nest can't be found or if the nest is too high, blown apart by weather, or if the babies are too big to fit in the nest together anymore, the baby will need to come to rehab, since the mother can't keep babies warm that are in different places. They will become more active, outgrow the nest, and begin bailing (and falling) out of trees. This is the time they begin coming to rehab, to be raised by and continue to be owls by foster GHOs like EWRC foster GHO, Hootie. Once they come to rehab the youngsters are handled only as necessary and never treated as pets, as doing so means they would not be releaseable and would have to be put down, as laws prohibit keeping these birds-and all wild birds-as pets. Just like every other newly hatched bird, the owls undergo an explosive amount of growth in a very short period of time, going from hatching to adult skeleton in about 3 weeks. So you can see, it is absolutely imperative the growing birds get the best nutrition to accommodate bone, tissue, and eye development. Once the youngster has grown, is healthy and able to hunt food, he is released back to nature, usually right back where he was found.
Over the course of the summer the owls learn to fly and hunt. The fluffy junior feathers will become adult feathers, with the head the last to get adult feathers. By end of summer and beginning of fall the youngsters look more like adults and should be efficient hunters, benefiting us people by keeping rodent populations in check.
So keep your eyes open and listen for hooting at night if you're interested in trying to see a GHO outside this time of year!
www.ellicottwildlife.com
P.O. Box 75069
Colorado Springs, CO. 80970
719-683-8152