Great Horned Owl

[lilranch2001]

From my reading re the Great Horned Owl, it seems it is the most common owl in North America, with populations in every state

 

[/pine]

I have heard of owls attacking hunters that were using certain calls...I will ask a neighbor who I think told me of such an occurrence...it may have been using a call when hunting coyotes...

 

[ponytug]

We live under a colony, and hear them all the time. Before nightly hunting, they gather in a tree and hoot to each other, rather like a team huddling up and psyching themselves up for the big play. They often hunt around us as we walk around the ranch at night; I assume that we flush prey for them.

They have never been anything other than shy and cryptic.

I have only seen them once in full daylight, usually only twilight and moonlight. Weight wise, coyotes seem rather big prey for great horned owls, but I don't have any factual information.

All the best,

Peter

 

[wheelbuilder]

Way back when I used to get National Geographic (80s if i remember) they had a bit on owls, and the photographer had a separate bit because he got tagged by some owls. They balled up their claws and made low passes hitting him. He wore a hard hat after the first time.

 

[oosik]

I live way out in the sticks. Got, at least, three different owls. Great Horned, Barn & and Northern Pygmy Owl. 1987 - the wife and I were walking down the driveway. From behind - an owl ( UKN type ) swooped down and pulled the stocking cap off the wife. Nobody was hurt and it happened so fast - nobody was scared. The entire event was TOTALLY silent.

Never could figure out why an owl would do that. Needless to say - the wife SELDOM went with me on future evening walks down the driveway.

JMHO - most all my "lost" barn cats are due to owls. At night the cats may venture out beyond the influence of the yard light. Big mistake - this is the hunting area of the owl & coyote.

 

[Oldpath05]

I have Barred Owls around here, they make some of most un-Godly noise I know of........
Barred Owl Calls - YouTube

 

[Ford850]

Lots of Barred Owls here too. Ungodly screams and squawks!
We have a couple Great Horned Owls, and we hear them occasionally. Every once in awhile a Screech Owl entertains us. They have all been shy around us.

 

[s219]

I live way out in the sticks. Got, at least, three different owls. Great Horned, Barn & and Northern Pygmy Owl. 1987 - the wife and I were walking down the driveway. From behind - an owl ( UKN type ) swooped down and pulled the stocking cap off the wife. Nobody was hurt and it happened so fast - nobody was scared. The entire event was TOTALLY silent.

A few years back I heard a lecture from a prominent British Aerodynamics/Acoustics expert named Geoffrey Lilley, who had done a lot of studies on owls and their lack of noise. It was fascinating.

Owls have very fluffy downy feathers under their wings that help absorb noise, and their feathers are setup to make only very low frequency noise, lower than their prey (and humans) can even hear. And the owls own ears block out their wing noise too. Their hearing range is the same as their prey. So when they swoop in on prey, it's a silent operation -- the owl can hear the prey but the prey can't hear anything and the owl doesn't even hear it's own noise.

The other interesting thing he said is that owls are capable of very steep flight paths, like as steep as 45 degrees. They can fly down towards prey at angles no fixed wing airplane could come close to doing, which is part of their amazing capability.

The end result is that owls hit their targets very fast and silent, as if out of nowhere. It's pretty amazing.

Lilley was an interesting guy too, who lived quite a life:

Obituaries: Professor Geoffrey Lilley, OBE | The Scotsman

 

[lilranch2001]

As I have been studying youtube owl sounds, I guess I realize there are many more owl sounds that I attributed to other birds than I had ever realized before

 

[lman]

When I was a kid, we trapped one in the chicken house. My dad grabbed it and it clamped it's talons around my dad's arms. My brother helped get it off of him and it was released about 10 miles away. It had killed about 10 chickens before we caught it. We have a lot of Barred Owls around here.