RAPTOR BASICS...

Susan Wood Dedication

To Jesus - “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth… all things have been created through Him and for Him.” Col 1:16 NAS

DOTo my NOThusband Jonathan, COPY who has rescued, OR bred, and trainedDISTRIBUTE hundreds of owls.

To my daughter Rachel, who has loved and cared for all our baby owls since she was a small child.PROOF

Artwork by Rachel Wood Contents

The Basics 1

Owl Features

Vision 5 Hearing 6 DO NOT COPY OR DISTRIBUTEPlumage 8 Sounds 9 Food 11 Size 12 Nesting 15 PROOF Babies 17 Mobbing 19 Defenses 20

Helping Wildlife 21 Importance of Owls 23

The Raptor Project 25

Gallery of Owls 28

The Basics Owls are one of the most magnificent, elusive, and enchanting in the kingdom. People are often captivated by the sight of one.

DO NOT COPYBarn Owl OR DISTRIBUTE Western Screech OwlPROOF

Since most owls hunt in darkness, they are rarely seen. With low lighting and their camouflaged array of feathers, they remain almost invisible.

1 Owls are raptors, or birds of prey, that hunt and kill other in order to survive in the wild. All raptors use their large feet and talons to kill their prey, and owls are no exception.

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Barred Owl

Not all owls are nocturnal, hunting at night. Some are diurnal, hunting during the day and Burrowing Owl sleeping during night hours. Many owls prefer hunting at dusk and dawn. 2 e a d i g i

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Eurasian Eagle Owl

Scientists use a system called to group similar into family groups. Owls are divided into two families. Most owls belong to the Strigidae family, or Typical Owls, because of theirPROOF broad face and large eyes. e a d i Barn owls belong in a particular category n called the Tytonidae family, or Tyto for short. o These owls have a heart shaped face and t smaller eyes. y

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Barn Owl

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Artwork by Rachel Wood

4 VISION Owls have many distinctive features, particularly their huge eyes. The eyes of the Eurasian Eagle Owl are larger than ours, although the only weighs six pounds. All owls have eyes that are fixed in their sockets,DO so theyNOT cannot COPY OR DISTRIBUTE move them back and forth. They must turn their whole head in order to look Since owls have fourteen vertebrae in their around. necks, they can rotate their head 270 degrees, which is three-quarters of the way around. By contrast, humans have seven vertebrae. PROOFEven a giraffe with its long neck, only has seven vertebrae!

270º

Ferruginous Pygmy Owl 5 HEARING

Owls have acute hearing. Their whole face is circular shaped, like a satellite dish, in order to collect and funnel sounds into their ears. This feature is called a facial disc and is made of skin and feathers.

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Great Gray Owl PROOF

The owl’s actual ears are little slits behind the facial disc. These ear slits are asymmetrical, one higher and the other lower, which helps the owl triangulate sounds.

6 An owl can catch a mouse simply by negotiating the sound, instead of actually seeing it. Snowy Owls have been known to dive through a foot of snow to catch a mouse scurrying below, locating it by sound alone.

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Owls are equipped with muffled feather edges, which gives them silent flight. They can sneak up on their prey without being heard, which is an important feature when hunting in the quiet stillness of the night. Barn Owl 7 PLUMAGE Owls found in cold climates often have feathers on their legs and toes also. Feathers are great insulators and keep these owls toasty warm.

Eurasian Eagle Owl DO NOT COPY OR DISTRIBUTE

The feather patterns on owls give them camouflage, blending into the habitat they live in. Owls that live in wooded areas have brown speckled feathers to blend with trees. Snowy Owls have white feathers to blend with their snowy arctic environment. Burrowing Owls are sand-col- ored because they live in sandy underground burrows. Eastern Screech OwlPROOFSnowy Owl Burrowing Owl

Owls grow an entire new set of feathers each year in a process called molting. One by one, each feather is pushed out and replaced by a fresh, new feather. Molting is a slow process that takes several months, usually during the summer. 8 SOUNDS Most owls make beautiful, melodic sounds-but not all owls hoot. Their sounds are unique to the particular type of owl.

Ho Hoo Hoodoo

Hoo oo DO NOT COPY Hoo OR DISTRIBUTE Css sss The Great is known for its traditional shhh hooting sound, while the Barn Owl has a sharp screeching sound, almostPROOF like an animal scream. ? You for Who cooks W ho u-all? cooks for yo

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Artwork by Rachel Wood 10 FOOD & DIGESTION All raptors cough up a pellet each day, which is a neatly packed ball of material they cannot digest. If a ate a rabbit, its pellet would be a hollow fur ball. Owls, on the other hand, do not digest bonesDO as other NOT raptors do. COPY OR DISTRIBUTE

Owl pellets contains the entire PROOFskeleton of the animal they ate. Since most owls eat , their pellets are made up of the skulls and bones of the rodents wrapped in the fur. Some students dissect owl pellets as part of their science class.

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Snowy Owl

12 Owls come in all sizes-some large and some small. Although most people believe that the is the largest owl in America, the Great SIZE Gray Owl and Snowy Owl are larger.

Great Horned Owl 2-4 pounds Great Gray Owl 3-4 pounds Snowy Owl 4-5 pounds DO NOT COPY OR DISTRIBUTE PROOFEurasian Eagle Owl

Great Gray Owl

The (Eurasian) Eagle Owl (6 to 10 pounds) and the (Asian) Blakiston’s (6 to 10 pounds) are known to be the largest owls in the world. The Great Gray Owl is considered the longest owl in length, although the Eagle Owl is more than twice its weight. Many Eagle Owls are used in educational programs throughout the world, but they are not found in the wild in America. 13 Among the smaller owls, the most common is the Screech Owl. There are many others, such as the Saw-whet, Elf, and Pygmy Owls. All of these weigh only a few ounces. DO NOT COPY OR DISTRIBUTE

In most owl species, as well as other Female birds of prey, the females are one-third larger than the males. When males and females of the same species look different, it is called PROOFsexual dimorphism.

Male

Some female owls are not only larger than the males but they have different plumage as well. Female Snowy Owls are white with bold black spots, while the males are faintly spotted and almost all white. 14 NESTING Owls are very good parents, and both mothers and fathers care for their young owlets. Most owls raise their young in stick nests built by other birds, or in tree cavities.

Screech Owl DO NOT COPY OR DISTRIBUTE Barn Owls often preferPROOF old barns for nesting sites.

15 BurrowingDO OwlsNOT are the only COPY OR DISTRIBUTE birds that nest underground, using abandoned burrows of prairie dogs and other animals.

From the day it hatches, an PROOFowlet’s diet is the same as its parents’. The parents use their sharp beaks, which act as a meat hook, to rip off tiny pieces of freshly killed rodents and tenderly feed their babies. By the time they are a few weeks old, the owlets can swallow an entire mouse whole.

Barn Owls

16 BABIES

Screech Owl Babies

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Most babies are fully grown at approximately eight weeks old, PROOF depending on the species. The smaller species, such as Screech Owls, are fully grown in only four weeks. But the youngsters stay with their parents a few more months, as the parents teach them how to hunt and kill to survive. When the young begin to fly, they might not live inside the nest, but will stay nearby. Eastern Screech Owl Fledgling

17 These two Great Horned Owlets are ready to start branching. A branching Barred OwletDO waiting NOT for its COPY OR DISTRIBUTE parents to bring the next meal. PROOF

During this important training period, the owlets exercise their wings to develop their flight abilities, flying from tree to tree. This is called branching. The young owls are very vocal during this time and their parents are able to locate them by their vocalizations. Eventually the youngsters learn how to hunt on their own and drift off to live independently. 18 MOBBING MOBBING SECTION

Loggerhead Shrike DO NOT COPY OR DISTRIBUTE

Many bird species, such as black birds and crows, feel threatened by the presence of an owl or other raptor in their territory. Finding strength in numbers, they will often band together to attack the predatory bird by PROOFswooping, darting, and scolding in an attempt to drive it out of the area. This behavior is called mobbing.

Mobbing birds have a mobbing call that alerts Burrowing Owl other birds to join forces to drive the owl out.

Most owls appear unaffected by mobbing attempts and seem to ignore the harassing birds. Sometimes the mobbing birds actually make contact and graze the owl’s head or body. If the harassing becomes bothersome, an owl may decide to gracefully fly off to another location. 19 OWL DEFENSES Like any other baby bird, owls are vulnerable to predation. The Great Horned owlet below is performing a threat display to scare a possible predator. By spreading its wings it appears larger than it really is.

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20 HELPING WILDLIFE What should you do if you find a young owl?

In the majority of cases, the bird is not truly an orphan. Scan the area for nests in trees, bushes or shrubs. Some owls nest in tree cavities, so their nest may be difficult to spot.

Listen for other sounds that may be a parent giving you a warning shriek or even squeaks from owl siblings that may be hiding. Many people will think an owl is injured because it can’t fly well. YoungDO owls inNOT the branching COPYstage are just learning OR DISTRIBUTE how to fly, so they may seem injured to you, but most likely they are not. They are still a little clumsy at that stage.

Barred Owl

Eastern Screech Owl PROOF

21 If you can see the owl’s nest, you should feel free to carefully place the young owl back in it. There is an old, common myth that a baby bird will be rejected by its parents if it is touched by a human, but that is completely untrue.

If you don’t see the nest, try to observe from a distance to see if another owl arrives or you hear their sounds. Try leaving the area and then return later to check on the situation. If the owl is still there and looks injured, perhaps it actually is.

DO NOT COPYMost often people OR will return DISTRIBUTE and find the owl is gone and discover it wasn’t injured at all.

Great Horned Owls

If the owl is still there and hasn’t moved, you can use a towel or gloves to gently pick it up. If you are relatively surePROOF that it is injured, place it in a box with enough ventilation. If there is a wildlife center or rehabilitator in the area, take it there right away. If you are not aware of a center nearby, most local veterinarians know where you can take the injured bird. Some veterinarians accept wildlife, but not many. If the crisis is taking place afterhours, a 24-hour veterinary clinic may be able to help. Even if they are not equipped to accept owls, they would most likely know where you can find assistance.

Barn Owls 22 THE IMPORTANCE OF OWLS Owls play a very important role in our environment and in the balance of nature. Since they mainly feed on mice and , they keep rodents from overpopulating and spreading harmful diseases.

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Eurasian Eagle Owl

23 Because owls are mysterious and sometimes make strange sounds, some people are afraid of them. There are also legends and fables in some cultures about owls that are untrue.

But with the increase of raptor education, more and more people now have a great appreciation of owls and are delightedDO to NOThave them living COPYin their neighborhoods. OR DISTRIBUTE

Long-eared Owl PROOF Some even purchase or build nest boxes to attract owls to live and raise their young close by. Websites are available that provide information for different types of owl boxes.

Aside from their beauty and great majesty, owls are also fascinating birds that fill a very important role in the world we share together.

Screech Owl 24 THE RAPTOR PROJECT

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Artwork by Rachel Wood 25 About the Raptor Project The Raptor Project leads the way in wildlife Raptor Project founders, Jonathan and Susan education, bringing exciting educational Wood, also adopt permanently handicapped programs and flight shows up close and birds from overcrowded wildlife centers to be personal to people throughout the United part of their raptor presentations. Although States. The Raptor Project is not a typical rehab these birds are not able to survive in the wild, center as most people are familiar with, but they have become beloved ambassadors of travels with 15 to 20 trained, live birds of prey their species to people young and old. (eagles, , owls, and falcons) bringing their show to theme parks, fairs, festivals, schools, Jonathan Wood began working with birds of and many other venues across America. prey at only 12 years old and has always had a great passion for raptors. Starting the Raptor TheDO Raptor ProjectNOT breeds manyCOPY species ORProject has DISTRIBUTE allowed him to turn his hobby of raptors and has perfected the raising, into his career. Along with his wife, Susan, and taming and training of raptors for spectacular their daughter Rachel, they travel together as educational shows. Many of their hand raised a family bringing the beauty and majesty of the birds are featured in movies and commercials, magnificent raptors into the hearts of all who working through animal acting agencies. Some see their show. are working for other bird shows at Disney World and Six Flags, as well as zoos and For more information visit: wildlife centers. PROOFwww.raptorproject.com

Jonathan Wood holding a Rachel, Jonathan and Susan Wood with some of Golden Eagle during a their feathered friends. performance. 26 DO NOT COPY OR DISTRIBUTE PROOF

Burrowing Owl 27 Gallery of North American Owls

Barred Owl Barn Owl Burrowing Owl Eastern Screech Owl DO NOT COPY OR DISTRIBUTE

Long-eared OwlPROOFShort-eared Owl Northern Saw-whet Owl Spotted Owl

Northern Hawk Owl Great Horned Owl Snowy Owl

28 Ferruginous Pygmy Owl Boreal Owl Elf Owl Western Screech Owl Acknowledgments A special thanks to Reinier Munguia who used his great skill and talent in creating the layout and design for this owl book. I greatly appreciate his squeezing this book project into his already busy schedule leading photography and birding expeditions. Reinier has also contributed many of his own photographs to this book. Above all, he and his family are treasured friends. www.wildstockphotos.com There are not many women as gifted as Ruth Hoyt. She is not only a dear friend but also one of the most talented photographers I know. She has taught photography for nearly 30 years and splits her time between working with youths and guiding photographers on private ranches in south Texas. Ruth has added a great deal to this book, including her editing skills and beautiful photos. www.ruthhoyt.com Photographer Dave Allen not only leads photography workshops and classes, but he is also a Master Falconer, flying raptors in the ancient sport of falconry. He & his wife are long time friends and share our passion for raptorsDO and adventure. NOT www.allenwildlife.com COPY OR DISTRIBUTE Thanks to Christina Honea who edited with grace, correcting without changing. I greatly appreciate my husband, Jonathan Wood, who supplied many of his own photographs, as well as his wise perspective and expertise. One of the most talented young women of all time is my sweet daughter Rachel Wood, who supplied all of the artwork for this book. Photo Credits PROOF Jonathan Wood: page 1(b), 3(t), 5(t), 6(b), 15, 16(b), 22(t), 24(t), 27, Gallery 6. Ruth Hoyt: page 1(t), 5(b), 12, 14(bl), Gallery 10,11,12,13. Dave Allen: page 18, Gallery 3. Reinier Munguia: page 2, 3(b), 8(bl)+(br), 9, 11, 14(t), 16(t), 17, 19, 20, 21, 22(b), 24(b), Gallery 1, 2, 4, 16

Stock Photos Depositphotos.com: page 6(t), 7, 8(t) + (bm), 13, 14(br), 23. Gallery 5, 7, 8, 9,14. Stock.adobe.com - Billy Bateman: Gallery 15.

Gallery of Owls 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Rachel Wood 9 10 11 12

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Artwork by Rachel Wood 31