June 13, 2010
Let’s talk about sex, baby
When we hear birds sing in spring, we say to ourselves, “They’re so happy. They sing because they’re happy.”
Sorry to say, birds don’t know about happy. We humans and our need to anthropomorphize*.
Birds vocalize for a number of reasons. Migrating geese honk “I’m still here.” to their companions. Titmice congregate with their posse around a backyard feeder and chitter “Come on. There’s food.” A chickadee’s alarm call says “Cat!” Blue Jays are the avian watchdogs. Their screeching alerts other birds to “Take cover. There’s a hawk. And you’re lunch!”
But most spring singing is about S-E-X. Males tell other males “I’m the man. This is my turf.” and inform the females that any time they’re ready for love, he’s ready too. And he’s going to be the best, ever.
Although most barred owls vocalize all year, our resident male began hooting in late winter, establishing his territory of 1/3 to 1.5 square miles. The barred owl’s call is who cooks for you, who cooks for you all, sometimes drawling the all like he’s from the deep South. I’d hear him hoot from the edges of his territory, far enough away that the sound was hard to grasp in my ears; another day, I could have sworn he was sitting on our chimney. Sometimes he’d call in the daytime, or dawn, or at dusk, or during the night. Unpredictable dude.
Listen: Who cooks for you...
Barred owl courtship usually begins in February with mating in March and April. Not our owl though. He called and called periodically for months, with no answer. Either there wasn’t a girl around for miles, or the poor guy is a little slow on the uptake.
Until the first week of June. A female finally replied and the courting began.
During courtship, the couple chase each other, swooping low over houses in aerial acrobatics while giving a variety of hooting and screeching calls. They preen and feed each other. “Males display by swaying back and forth, and raising their wings, while sidling along a branch.”
Two years ago, I saw this behavior. The male puffed out his chest and strutted, legs extended, talons raised, looking very much like one of the Queen’s guards marching at Buckingham Palace. I reviewed over 70 pages of images looking for a photo of this and couldn’t find a one.
Monogamous, a pair may mate for life and like any harmonious couple, they talk, they dialogue. And they have very vocal, very rowdy, very lusty sex.
How do I know this? Because their hormonal hooting is impossible to confuse with anything else. Calls include "hoo-hoo, hoo-WAAAHH" and "hoo-WAAAHHH," short yelps, barks, and frenzied, raucous howler monkey squalls.
Barred owls make the widest variety of sounds of all the North American owls and are especially talkative during courtship when, in the words of Allen Eckert, author of The Owls of North America, there are "specialized calls made with relative infrequency which virtually defy written description. Some are coarse, guttural, and, to human ears, almost uncouth in character. Others are much like the fierce, hair-raising shrieks of mating alley cats. There are deep chucklings, harsh laughing sounds, maniacal gibberings and gabblings, disconsolate mutterings, howls, and yells. Occasionally there will even be a decidedly disconcerting humanlike scream of pure agony."
You think he’s exaggerating? Listen to their courting caterwauling.
Lusty Love 1
Lusty Love 2
OK, you two, get a room.
These duets began the first week of June, continued for a few days, then were followed by occasional less ribald conversations in the dead of night, so loud I woke from deep sleep. When they shut up for good, I’ll know that the nasty has been done and babies are on the way.
Opportunistic or just plain lazy, barred owls rarely build their own nests and instead use a big tree hole or an old hawk, crow, or squirrel nest, making very few home improvements. Two to 4 white, almost round eggs are laid, one every 2 or 3 days, which are brooded by the female. During this period, the male continually brings her food, as well he should. About 4 weeks later, the babies hatch, covered with white fluffy down. Their eyes stay closed for a whole week.
 Owlets will leave the nest cavity at about 30 days of age, but are not fledged until 7 to 9 weeks old. As they are unable to fly at this point, the owlets crawl out of the nest and sit together on a branch to look around, spread and test their wings, an essential first step for their first flight. These Owls are called branchers, and they climb trees by grasping the bark with beak and talons and with a flapping of wings, pull themselves up the trunk.
The parents hunt, tearing meat into small pieces the young'uns can eat. Barred owls are carnivores (like all owls) with a diet consisting of small to medium-sized prey, mostly mice, but also small squirrels, baby rabbits, bats, moles, fox, opossums, small birds, and snakes. The barred owls’ sense of smell is probably not that strong as they’ll even gobble a skunk.
Since owls consume their entire kill except for the wings of birds, they swallow pieces/parts they can’t digest. So they upchuck little balls of tiny bones, feathers and fur called pellets. If you find a pile of these under a tree, you have found an owl’s dining spot.
After the babies learn to fly — a long time, about 40 days— they follow their folks around and learn to hunt. Barred owl parents feed and take care of their brood for at least 4 months, much longer than most other owls. The barred owl mating season lasts until August. One brood is produced per season, which allows for a second clutch to be produced if the first fails.
The mother is a little bigger than the father, but otherwise, mom, pop and the kids, once they lose their down, look alike. Like many other birds, the female is a tad larger. Males are 1 to 1.5 pounds. Females weigh in at 1.5 to 1.75 pounds. The male's voice is deeper and mellower.
Young barred owls don’t move far from home, usually less than 6 miles. Such good children, living so close to mom.
Fascinating Factoids:
- While most other owls have yellow eyes, the barred owl’s are brown, effective in low light conditions.
- The barred owl’s beak is so small it is almost covered by its facial feathers.
- It is hard to be totally accurate, but some claim barred owls have up to eight times better vision than humans.
- The barred owl stands 18 to 22 inches tall.
- Wingspan is about 3.5 to 4 feet; the feathers are fringed on the edges, helping to make their flight virtually silent;
- The oldest recorded wild barred owl was 18.
* I’ll save you a trip to dictionary.com. Anthropomorphize: to ascribe human form or attributes to an animal, plant, material object, etc.
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