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Bruce Mactavish: The season for hearing owls
Bruce Mactavish · Columnist | Posted: April 7, 2018, 6 a.m. | Updated: April 7, 2018, 6 a.m. | 4 Min Read
A young great horned owl peeks around the protective body of its mother at the human figure on the ground taking its picture in May 2015 in the Goulds. Note the pair of rabbit feet on the side of the nest left over from a meal for the owlet. - Bruce Mactavish photo
Owls sing! What is music to our ears may sound like jibberish to an owl just as the song of the owl is not exactly musical to our ears. However, there is no denying that the average person is fascinated by the calls of owls in the night. Owls can call at any time of year but they crank it up a few notches for the nesting season.
The nesting season for owls is March to May.
There are three reasonably common night-time owls on the island of Newfoundland. They are the great horned owl and two small owls called the boreal and northern saw-whet owl.
The great horned owl is a big, strong owl widespread in the wooded areas across most of Canada and the United States. It is a highly successful species occurring in a wide variety of habitat ranging from the deserts of Arizona to the near tundra conditions of northern Labrador. They are big enough to eat a variety of prey but their favourite dinner is the rabbit. There are many kinds of rabbits living across North America. They also eat rodents down to the size of a small mouse, which includes rats when available.
The two small owls are undergoing some dramatic population changes. Since the beginning of time boreal owl was the only small owl in Newfoundland. Its more southern cousin, the northern saw-whet owl, was quite rare on the island in the 1980s and 1990s. Over the last fifteen years there was a gradual increase in numbers including some nesting occurrences. In the last five years saw-whet owl numbers have virtually exploded. It is the now most commonly heard owl of spring. The down side to this success story is the apparent decrease in boreal owls. Boreal owls are 50 per cent larger than a saw-whet owl, so you would think they would be able to hold themselves against its smaller cousin in the woods.
There is more to the picture than meets the eye. The rapid increase in the saw-whet owl follows on the heels of two small rodents accidentally introduced to the island of Newfoundland. The red-backed vole and deer mouse are two woodland species common in the forests of Eastern Canada but were missing from Newfoundland because it is an island. They were thought to have hitchhiked across the border in bales of hay transported from the mainland to this province. They have very recently spread across the island. This should mean increased food for all the owls. We do not have the answers yet to this boreal owl versus northern saw-whet owl match-up.
What do owls sound like?
The northern saw-whet owl has a simple call. It is repeated whistled toots, about two per second, repeated indefinitely. People have likened it to the warning sound of a truck backing up. They call most often during the first two or three hours of darkness but can call any time of the night. They do not require vast tracks of forest, but broken patchy forest with clearings near houses is good enough for the saw-whet owl. They use old woodpecker holes for a nesting site. Take a listen from your own house this evening if you live in a wooded area. Calm warm nights are the best time for owls to be calling.
The boreal owl prefers a slightly wilder setting for nesting but also uses an old woodpecker hole. Its call is rapid series of whistled toots running together becoming louder and clearer at the end. The call is actually very similar to the winnowing sound that snipe make in the spring sky. The sound of the owl will come from one place in the woods while the snipe call comes from various locations overhead in the sky. The snipe will not be here until the third week of April so you have a couple of weeks of snipe-free interruptions.
The great horned owl is the hoot owl of the night. It typically hoots in patterns of five hoots something like this — hoot hoot-hoot hooot hooot. The second and third hoots run together and the last two are more spaced out. The females have a higher hoot than the males. It is not uncommon to hear a pair of great horned owls calling to each other. Is there any better sound to hear while lying in bed in the cabin than a duet of great horned owls?
There are other owls. The snowy owl joins us in the winter but flies back to the Arctic for the summer to nest. They have various harsh calls but do not systematically call at night like other owls. Another interesting but little-encountered Newfoundland owl is the northern hawk owl. This elusive species is not particularly shy and it often hunts during daylight. But it lives in inaccessible parts of central Newfoundland where people are not often present.
Owls are among us.
Bruce Mactavish is an environmental consultant and avid birdwatcher. He can be reached at [email protected]
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