Great Horned Owl

Also known as
Big hoot owl, cat owl, chicken owl, eagle owl, hoot owl, horned owl, king owl, Virginia horned owl.
What is the scientific name?
Bubo virginianus
Where are they located? How many subspecies are there?
Great horned owls range over all of North America (Johnsgard 1988). There are 12 subspecies of great horned owls in North America and between 16 and 14 in the world (Voous 1989). B.v. scalariventris occurs in the northern half of the Pacific Coast, B.v. lagophonus ranges from Alaska down through the interior of Oregon and B.v. occidentalis is found in the southeastern part of Oregon east to Kansas (Johnsgard 1988).
Where do they live?
As can be concluded from their range, Great horned owls live in any number of habitats and this makes describing where they live very imprecise. Essentially, they live where they can find a nesting site, a roosting site, and a hunting area (Johnsgard 1988). Great horned owls can be found in woodlands, open country, parks and semi-deserts (Farrand 1988).
What do they look like?
Great horned owls range from a light brown to a dark brown, depending on the location. In the Pacific Northwest they are dark mottled gray-brown above and a buff color below with dark cross bars. They have a distinguishing white throat and ear tufts.
How big are they?
Great horned owls are the largest owls in North America and range between 18 to 25 inches long, females larger (Johnsgard 1988). They have a wingspread between 36 and 60 inches (Terres 1980). Females weigh between 1½ and 5½ pounds and males between 1½ and 4½ pounds (Earhart and Johnson 1970).
How long do they live?
Uncertain. Two of the oldest great horned owls lived 20 years, 7 months (Klimkiewicz and Futcher 1989) and 17 years, 4 months (Clapp et al 1983), respectively. They have lived up to 29 years in captivity (Terres 1980).
How fast can they fly?
The great horned owl has been clocked flying at over 40 miles per hour (Cottam et al 1942).
What do they eat?
Great horned owls take a variety of prey, but mainly rabbits, hares and rodents. The major items found in one study found the following percentages: 61.1% cottontails, 17.9% woodrats, 4.5% kangaroo rats, 4.3% pocket gophers, 3.7% gopher snakes, 2.4% ground squirrels, small amounts of pocket mice, meadow mice, rattlesnakes, birds and other unidentified mammals and reptiles (Fitch 1947).

Interesting notes: Great horned owls have been called "winged tigers" because of their reported "ferocity" and competency at catching prey (Bent 1938; Voous 1989). They often prey on mammals and birds as large as (and including) skunks, opossums, weasels, crows, ducks, geese, swans, and even Cooper's hawks (Gullion 1947; Voous 1989). It is interesting that even though skunks have a remarkable defense mechanism, it only works well if an animal can smell. Since the great horned owl, as most birds, have little to no sense of smell, the skunk is relatively defenseless against them.

Birds of prey living in cold environments often cache their food, storing them for when food supplys are short. These food reserves can often freeze in cold weather, so this leads to the question: How do hawks and owls eat frozen food? Several owls, including the great horned owl, have been observed to sit on their frozen prey until it softens up enough to eat. Knowing this, a couple of researchers experimented with a great horned in Illinois. They gave the owl three frozen lab rats and a frozen red fox carcass. The owl was observed to "incubate" and eat all of them (George and Sulski 1984). This might be interesting to think about the next time you pop a TV dinner in the microwave.

Last updated April 16, 2006
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Copyright 2006, by Jim Rible