Barred Owl Great Horned

My call is an eerie whinny that descends OWLS in pitch.

Eastern Screech Just 9” tall, Screech Owls come in Of Southeastern two color morphs – gray and red (red Barred Owl morph shown). Their jaunty ear tufts This large owl, around 21” tall, can can be upright or lay flat. They eat mice, easilyMinnesota pass silently and completely unnoticed amphibians, birds, and sometimes hunt through the woods because of specially large moths and other insects attracted modified flight feathers. If you hear a hooty by city lights. Photo © Jerry Pruett call that sounds like “who cooks for you, who cooks for you all”... you’re hearing one Owls can’t move of our common Barred Owls. their eyes at all, Photo © Denise Dupras • OneWomansNature.net but can rotate their heads up to 270 degrees! If your eyes took up as much space in your head as an owl’s, each eye would be nearly the size of a small grapefruit! Great Horned Owl Another big owl at 22” tall with a 55” wingspan, this owl is sometimes called a flying tiger! Nesting starts in mid-winter with owlets hatching in March. Their call is described as hoo-ho-hoo, are just fe ts ath hoo, hoo, but they also chitter, uf e t rs r” , squawk, hiss and clack their a n e o “ t bills – which means “back off!”. e Great Horned e Photo © Don Anderson • see more of s a e r Don’s photos at fineartamerica.com s h Owls eat squirrels ! T and skunks & are strong enough to pick up a small dog. Northern Saw-whet at to owls Our smallest owl is hre is t ha st b common but seldom seen. Just e i g ta g t 7” tall, one fits easily in your i b Most wild l hand. They live year-round in o e s s h owls have dense evergreen thickets and . T eat mice and other small rodenticides in their creatures. Some (though not all) bodies. Use traps, migrate south each October. This owl was banded east of not poison, to Quarry Hill Nature Center in 2014. control rodents.

Poster created by Sandy Hokanson for Zumbro Valley Audubon Society. Learn more about birds at ZumbroValleyAudubon.org Many thanks to Don Anderson, Denise Dupras & Jerry Pruett for allowing us to use their photos.