Owl Facts is a page, that combined with the pages Owl Pictures and Owl Clip Art will give you great information and great pictures of owls.
The owl is a fascinating creature, different from all other birds in so many ways, with an eyesight and especially a hearing way better than most animals.
Read about the different types of owls, about their special
hearing using the facial disc as kind of satellite disc, and a
lot more.
There are many types of owls, including the great Gray owl, the Eastern screech owl, the pygmy owl, the northern spotted owl, and the snowy owl.
There are over 200 different species of owls, which are divided
into two groups:
The owl uses to catch and eat its prey, which means that it falls into the 'raptor' category of birds.
Other birds that fall in the 'raptor'
category include the hawk, the falcon, and the eagle.
However unlike
these other birds, most owls are mostly nocturnal birds.
Nocturnal means
that the owl prefers to hunt at night when the other birds of prey
are sleeping.
For this reason, owls can live peacefully in the same
territory as other birds of prey because the owl is not competing
with the other birds of prey for their food.
Seeing as the owl
sleeps during the day and hunts at night, there is little chance
that the owl will encroach on the territory of the other predatory
birds nearby.
There are 19
different species of owls living in North America, 12 of which can
be found nesting in the central state of Idaho.
Nesting means that
the birds actually live in a certain region, rather than just
passing through for mating or migration.
The great Gray owl is the
largest owl found in North America, with the great Horned owl being
the owl that weighs the most.
In North America, the pygmy owl is the smallest species of
owls.
The majority of the owls that live in the
world today tend to be nocturnal, however, there are a few
exceptions to the rule.
For example, pygmy owls and burrowing
owls both like to hunt during the day, making them diurnal creatures.
The great horned owl is most active around dawn and dusk,
making it a crepuscular animal.
So despite the stereotypes of owls only
hunting at night, there are certain parts of the world where you can
actually see owls hunting during the daytime.
Owls will basically eat anything they can get their talons on.
Seeing as they are predators, they eat small animals according to
their size.
The small owls like pygmy owls or saw-whet owls will
usually hunt for mice and shrews, as they are too small to hunt
larger game.
Voles and mice are the two dinners most commonly
consumed by the average owl, and owls can actually benefit humans by
keeping the population of these rodents down.
Large owls tend to
hunt larger prey, such as squirrels, wood rats, voles, and rabbits.
The larger the owl, the larger the prey it tends to hunt.
Great horned owls sometimes even catch skunks for dinner, as well as
bats, fish, toads, scorpions, snakes, frogs, lizards, and even other
small birds.
The great horned owl is often known for fishing for its
dinner, and it is not uncommon to see an owl swooping down and
dipping its talons into the river to pull out a fresh fish.
Due to the fact that many farmers consider mice to be a pest, owls
are often seen as a blessing for farmers who are trying to control
the number of mice present on their farms.
One barn owl must consume
roughly 79 pounds (36 kilos) of mice per year.
This adds up to
nearly 800 pounds (400
kilograms) of mice during the 10 year lifespan of the average owl.
At roughly 1 ounce (29 grams) per mouse, an owl ends up eating
nearly 13,000 mice during its entire life.
Seeing as how mice need
to eat roughly 10% of its body weight each day, the number of mice
an owl consumes during its lifespan equals roughly 15 metric tons of
food less being consumed each year.
Owls are usually fairly sedentary creatures, who prefer just to hang out or snooze on around the clock.
Owls have few natural enemies, as they are fairly mild mannered creatures that tend to mind their own business.
Humans are responsible for 96% of the
deaths of owls around the country.
The Great Horned Owl’s primary enemy is other Great Horned
Owls, and most other owls have few enemies.
Seeing as they are 'raptor' predators, there are few other predators that attack them.
Let's get
down to the fun owl facts:
Did you know that:
A group
of owls is known as a parliament. (A funny reminder of how grave
and serious owls appears to be.)
Owls are
able to twist their necks and turn their heads up to 270°
without ever having to move their shoulders.
Owls
have three eyelids. The upper lid and lower lid function like
regular eyelids, but there is a third layer of tissue that moves
from the inside of the owl’s eye to the outside. This third
eyelid is designed for cleaning the eye.
Owls
appear in hieroglyphics found in Egypt, and they can be seen
depicted in 15,000 to 20,000 year old paintings on caves in
France.
People
in the olden days were very superstitious about owl.
If an owl
hooted three times on the left side of a hunter, the hunter
would immediately stop what he was doing in order to avoid bad
luck.
Many people believed that the hoot of an owl was
responsible for illnesses like tonsillitis, and pregnant women
were afraid of birth complications if they heard the hoot of an
owl as they were giving birth.
Others believed that hearing an
owl hoot indicated that someone was about to die, and would
throw salt into a fire in order to prevent the 'bad luck' associated with owls.
Of course this can not be considered owl
facts today :-)
Back to the top of this page about Owl Facts
Visit other pages relevant to this one, and Homepage:Homepage | Owl Facts | Owl Pictures | Animal Clipart |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Bird Silhouettes | |||
![]() |
site search by freefind |
Hot pages right now:
Father's Day Cards
Father's Day Clipart
Birthday Clipart
Graduation Clipart
Wedding Clipart
Spring clipart
Flower Borders
Sun Clipart
Happy Father's Day
Book Clipart
Party Clip Art
Horse silhouettes
Victorian Silhouette
Bird Pictures
Space clip art
Koi Fish Drawings
Penguin clip art
Butterfly Clipart
Dinosaur Clip Art
Animal clip art
Tiger Clipart