Tag: spotted owl

A Mysterious Encounter: The Owl on the Bench

Posted on by David Greer

by David Greer

Two weeks after my wife died this past October, she briefly returned. Or so it seemed to me.

Not in the flesh, of course. Instead, I received a visit from a creature whose behavior was so unexpected, so unnerving, so uplifting, that it seemed to defy rational explanation, and I felt the presence of my wife as strongly as if she were beside me.

The visitor was a barred owl. I’m familiar with barred owls, though not with barred owls as familiars. At night, I’ve often heard from the forest the signature barred owl query, “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?” Less often, I’ve been jolted awake by a bloodcurdling scream–is someone’s throat being cut?—and my heart pounds until reason clears the fog from my brain: it’s only an owl. I’ve also on occasion gone into the forest to investigate strange querulous whistles that become less strange when I spot a trio of juvenile barred owls begging a parent for food—a freshly killed fieldmouse or flycatcher—and counting on persistent whistling to do the trick.

But the owl that visited me after my wife’s death was silent. She sat outside the door, perched on the back of the garden bench on which my wife had loved to sit after walking unaided became too difficult for her. (I say ‘she’ because female barred owls are up to a third larger than males, and this was a very large owl.) There was no missing her. Barred owls are not unobtrusive. They’re smaller than a great horned owl but considerably larger than the northern spotted owl, whose habitat they have been taking over since first being observed in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s. Their gradual spread west from their native habitat in eastern North America may have been enabled by the reforestation of parts of the prairie after the age-old indigenous practice of burning grasslands was prohibited. Read more »

Staying Alive: The Owl, the Orca, and the Human Problem

Posted on by David Greer

by David Greer

Northern spotted owl, British Columbia. Jared Hobbs photo.

The northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) and the southern resident orca (Orcinus orca) are dramatically different animals that employ curiously similar predation techniques, and both face extinction thanks in large part to their choice of prey.

The northern spotted owl, one of three subspecies of spotted owls, is slightly smaller than a raven and inhabits mature forests along the Pacific coast of North America from southwestern British Columbia to northern California. The southern resident orca, sometimes called the killer whale, occupies the same part of the world and is found primarily in the coastal waters of British Columbia, Washington and Oregon, and most especially throughout the Salish Sea.

Though the extinction threats they face are different in nature, there is one very similar root cause—the fact that they are both fussy eaters.

The diet of the spotted owl consists primarily of two small rodents: bushy-tailed wood rats (otherwise known as pack rats) and flying squirrels. Like most other owls, the spotted owl hunts primarily in the dark. To catch its prey efficiently with minimal expenditure of energy, it has evolved two remarkable and complementary aptitudes: exquisite hearing and silent flight. Unlike some owl species that prowl at night in search of prey, the spotted owl simply perches in a tree, waits motionless, and intently listens. If it hears the scratching of pack rat toenails on a log or the soft impact of a flying squirrel landing on a tree trunk, it unfolds its wings and launches towards the sound. Like other owls, the spotted owl has evolved a structure and texture of feathers that ensures an almost soundless flight. Read more »