Owls: Shenandoahs Ghost Bird

Hello and welcome to Shenandoah National Park. I am Intern Cassandra Reed and today we are going to talk about the three different owl species you can find here in the park. Those would be the barred owl, the great horned owl, and the eastern screech owl. Now through history owls have been known as different symbols and omens, even through the sun, even through the different cultures. Now, for instance, in China owls were known as god-like figures.

The Romans believed owls were 00:39 - these evil creatures that brought the prophecy of death, and in some Native American cultures owls were the prophecy of death, but also travel of the soul to the hereafter. The Greeks believed owls were associated with their virgin Goddess of Wisdom and Strategy, Athena, but here in Shenandoah National Park, the owls are these wild nocturnal animals of the night with great hunting abilities and part of our important ecosystem here. Our owls are not migratory. They actually stay in the park year- round, and they have a steady hunting supply of prey year-round as well. Most of the animals that they hunt are active all the way through winter. Also, our owls are found at different elevations in the park.

Barred 01:22 - owls are usually found above 2,500 feet elevation, while great horned owls and eastern screech owls are found below 2,500 feet elevation. Now, with eastern screech owls, they are small owls in size and because the great horned owls are such large birds in size, the great horned owls will actually hunt the eastern great screech owls, and though they live at the same elevation, they usually stay as far apart as they can from each other in order to protect and survive. The meadow provides an amazing habitat for the owls to hunt in. There’s prey year-round in the meadow, as in rodents and mice, small animals, insects, shrews, voles, anything that the owls can hunt in the meadow is here and provided. The meadow is also a great habitat because it’s a nice open area for the owls to be able to fly down and grab their prey without having to run into anything or maneuver around some trees.

Now let’s go 02:19 - learn a little bit more about the owls and their unique adaptations here in the park. Owls are nocturnal birds which means that they like to roost during the day and sleep at night. However, sometimes you can see an owl during the day if it’s cloudy out or even late in the evening or early in the mornings. Owls are carnivorous birds, but they’re also raptors, just like hawks and other birds in the park. Raptors are carnivorous birds with sharp talons, strong beaks, and great flight abilities.

The prey that are available here in Shenandoah 03:00 - National Park are mice, voles, shrews, frogs, snakes, and small animals, as well as insects. However, owls cannot digest fur, bones, and feathers which means they regurgitate them into owl pellets that can be found on the ground and around owls nesting areas or roosting areas. Now, I have a few props here today that I’m going to use to show what adaptations owls have that are unique to them. The adaptations are bodily or physical features that owls and other animals have that help them survive in their environment. This is our owl skull. Now owls have these disc-like feathers around each eye that help funnel noise to their ears.

Their ears are asymmetrical–meaning one is higher and 03:50 - one is lower–and can be found on the sides of their head. Now owls are really unique because they have these sharp beaks just like raptors, but they also have eyes that are stuck in the inside of their sockets–meaning they can’t move their eyes back and forth. However, they have a wider field of vision than humans do, and they also have binocular binocular vision just like humans–meaning that they can have both eyes focus on the same object at one time. Now owls are also unique because their head can turn 270 degrees around which is almost three quarters of a circle. This helps them see their surroundings more fully and also is great for hunting because they don’t have to use much of their body to move around with.

04:44 - Now, just like other raptors, owls have these very sharp, curved talons. However owls have a reversible toe on the outer side–meaning that their toe can either face forward or backward. Most raptors have three toes that can face forward and one facing backwards. Owls can have two facing forward, two facing backward, or three facing forward, and one facing backwards. This helps them grab onto prey easier and carry them away, as well as find a good perch on a branch and not be able to fall, especially during the day when they’re roosting.

Have you ever heard an owl fly? You probably haven’t, because owls have 05:28 - silent flight. They’re almost like ghost birds, because you can’t hear them coming whatsoever–even the prey can’t hear them coming, and it’s great for them when they’re hunting. The reason they have silent flight is because at the edge of these feathers, there’s like these comb-like fringe on the outer edge of their flight feathers. Now, when they fly that comb-like fringe helps keep their silent flight and allows the owls to hunt even more quietly and funnel noise easier to their ears. If they were flapping around and had all that noise, they couldn’t hear as well and wouldn’t be able to find their prey even when it was hidden.

Another cool thing is that owls have 06:09 - this colors on their wings, their back, and their chest, and it helps with camouflage in the forest. So, when you are out in the forest it helps protect against predators and prey, and especially when hunting–prey can’t see them as easily. Now we are going to go talk about the three different owls that we have here in the park. Again, that is the barred owl, the great horned owl, and the eastern screech owl. So, follow me and let’s go learn about them. The three different owls that are found here in Shenandoah National Park are very unique and similar, but they also have their own qualities about them that put them apart from each other.

06:52 - The barred owl is this model brown, almost white color that has bars of brown on its chest, its underside, and its wings, which is where it gets its name: barred owl. It eats many of the prey here in the park, but it prefers the more smaller ones, like bull shrew, mice, frogs, and insects. However, it can go after small birds and other small animals in the area. Now barred owls, they prefer older, denser forest because they like those big decayed trees. They rather stay in a hole in the tree than using a stick nest.

Barred owls are not as protective over their young or their territory 07:35 - as what a great horned owl or an eastern screech owl is. They’re actually a little bit more mellow. Now, barred owls, they do mate for life and they usually have about two to four eggs per season. Mating usually takes round in February, and then breeding is usually between March to early August. They have the longest parental care of their young than any other owl in the entire world. So barred owls, that means that they’re going to look after their young and provide for them much longer before they let them off into the world. Now, their hoot is really unique.

08:14 - Barred owls have this hoot that sounds kind of like they’re talking to you. So if you’re in the forest and you hear it and you think that someone’s around you and you’re by yourself, don’t be scared. It might just be a barred owl. It sounds almost like “who cooks for you, who cooks for you all.” It’s a very unique hoot, and they also have another one that’s a little bit more talkative and it sounds like two owls talking back and forth to each other, which usually it is hoots are used to communicate with each other, communicate with their young, their mates, as well as claim territory in the area. Now, let’s go talk about great horned owls.

Great horned owls are almost the complete opposite as barred owls. They’re actually more aggressive, because they are very protective of their territory, their young, and their mates. They also are not very picky when it comes to eating food. They eat up to 250 kinds of prey. They will go after snakes, they’ll go after rabbits, they’ll go after foxes, they’ll even go after skunks, and sometimes they’ll even go after small owls, like the eastern screech owl. Now, great horned owls, they’re the only ones that will really go after a skunk, because they don’t have the best smell, so they don’t really smell or be deterred from the skunk, and they eat just about anything that they can carry.

09:39 - They’re extremely fierce hunters, and they are strong. They’re also pretty large bird because of how well they hunt and how aggressive they can be, they are called the flying tigers of the air. Great horned owls are unique because they were found by the Virginia settlers that first came here, and they were first called the Virginia’s owl and was later renamed to the great horned owl. “Great” because their size, as in they’re about two feet tall. They can have a wingspan of about five feet long, and they can get up to four pounds.

And, then “horned” because they have 10:18 - two inch tall ear tufts on the top of their heads. Now these aren’t their actual ears. They have ears just like all other owls that are on the sides of their heads–these are just feathers that stick up, but, again, they get the name “great horned” because they look like horns. Great horned owls usually mate for life, and they have between two to four eggs. They’re also the only owl that has such an early mating and breeding season. They’ll start mating between December to early January, and then they’ll have their eggs by close to February.

Great 10:57 - horned owls have a very unique hoot, too. It’s kind of almost haunting and scary for some people, but it’s very cool. The great horned owls have a very loud, low, booming hoot that’s about three to eight hoots long that go from long to short. Now, great horned owls, they really like dense forests. Dense forests provide those decay trees for them and also decayed logs if they can’t find a tree that’s been decayed out, or if they can’t find an abandoned hawks nest, heron’s nest, or crow’s nest.

Great horned owls will actually go for logs that have been decayed out that are 11:35 - laying on the ground with a big enough hole that they can actually put their nest in, just like this one here. Now, let’s go learn a little bit about the eastern screech owl. Eastern screech owls are aggressive just like great horned owls, but they need to be aggressive because of how small they are. Eastern screech owls only get up to about nine and a half inches tall, with a wingspan of 24 inches long, and usually only weigh about 8 ounces. Eastern screech owls have a lot that they need to protect themselves from, for one they are considered to be prey to hawks and great horned owls, and they prefer much denser forest because it’s harder for the bigger owls to get through when they are hunting.

Eastern screech 12:27 - owls don’t really mind urban areas. They actually kind of like living in them because it’s closer to humans, and great horned owls are not very fond of humans like eastern screech owls are. They’re still aggressive and they don’t like when humans get close to their nest, but they will take a bird’s house if they can fit inside it. They will also take small tree cavities, as well as abandoned hawk’s and crow’s nests. Eastern screech owls have a really cool hoot that kind of sounds like a whinning horse.

They also have a one note trail hoot that they both, that 13:05 - they use both for communication with their young as well as their mates, and to claim territory. Eastern screech owls may be small in size, but they are quite fierce hunters. They also eat a series of prey that are more smaller found here in the park, like the insects and the small rodents that we find in the meadow. Now, the really cool thing about eastern screech owls is that when they are hunting insects, they’ll sit on a branch and wait for the insect to fly by and then they’ll jump up from the branch and capture it by its wings before the insect even knew it was coming. Now, eastern screech owls, they usually mate for life, however a male can take two females at one time.

They’ll share the same nesting area, and they’ll have eggs with both females. Now, eastern screech owls can have between three to eight eggs, and when a male does this he has to go out and hunt for both females and bring food back for them. Now, this is more of a rare occurrence, but when it does happen the males do get a chance with having a little break. Sometimes the female will let the male incubate the eggs for only a very short time so that she can go out and hunt. Now, let’s go talk about some of the human impacts that affect our owls here in the park as well as outside of the park.

14:33 - Human impacts have been an influence inside the park and can be seen outside of the park as well. For instance, telephone lines that we have here in the park can be a nuisance for some owls, as well as barbed wire fences outside the park. When the owls are flying or just hunting for prey and they swoop down, they can get caught in the health–the telephone lines or they can get caught in the barbed wire fences. Just with those lines, too, we also have Skyline Drive here, which is our main drive here in the park. Now, when owls swoop down at night, and going after prey in the road, or even just sit in the road to eat prey, they could get hit by an automobile. If we had a fire here in the park.

it could deter the owls to have to move to a new 15:20 - area, which could already be overrun by another owl, or not have a good food supply for them. Urbanization has been a huge thing as well, because it pushes the owls out of the area where they have to find a new home, too. But, here in Shenandoah National Park, we have more of a wild natural area for them to be safe, in almost like a sanctuary. Owls have been known through history as either symbols or omens. They have a known to be wise, stealthy, ghost-like birds, and they are very prominent here in our ecosystem.

Without the owls 15:56 - here in our ecosystem, our balances would be out of check, and we may have an overrun of insects and mice. So, here in Shenandoah National Park, our ecosystem is very important to us and the owls bring that beautiful natural resource to us and are very important for us to keep safe. I want to thank you for coming out and learning about the owls here in Shenandoah National Park with me, and if you would like information, more information about the animals that are here or about the park itself, please visit our app or even our website at www.nps.gov/shen. See you next time! .