Great Horned Owl

[lilranch2001]

I do not remember reading what a owls territory range may be, but most raptors, 10 miles is a drop in the bucket.

I know I saw a flock of bald eagles last year out in a farm field almost 20 miles from their nesting sight at Salamonie Reservoir

 

[Jstpssng]

One night when I was in HS my brother and I were on our way home and a great snowy owl dove down and bounced off the hood of the car. It sat in the ditch, dazed, but seemed unhurt so we went on our way.
In hindsight we probably should have called a game warden. That was a big bird!

 

[/pine]

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

I once witnessed a bit of a contradiction to this but I realize it was a unique experience... just after daylight I was sitting in a hunting stand when an great horned owl came down on a woods mouse that had crawled out of some leaves...the amount of air the attacking owl displaced created a great amount of (very dry) leaves to be rustled it sounded like a mini tornado...

 

[drssg]

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

Thanks for posting that. I hear that a lot, but I never knew the species behind it. On some of the higher notes, the can almost sound like a coyote or a baboon to me.

 

[dieselscout80]

I saw a big owl fly by one night about 6 feet above me it was almost unreal and yet very cool.

When we had a yard light a big owl would land in the lit area and hope around. I guess getting mice.

 

[MossRoad]

We've got Great Horned Owls, Barn Owls, Barred Owls, Screech Owls, Northern Saw-Whet Owls, the occasional Snow Owl in winter, Long Eared, Short Eared... sheesh we got a bunch of owls. The Saw-whet's were the most interesting to me. Little bitty things and very timid. You can pick them off a branch with your finger and they just sit there looking at you. Haven't seen them since I was a kid, but they are still around according to local birders.

 

[dodge man]

Another tidbit, owls eat everything and barf up the bones and fur later. I’ve seen the leftovers before.

 

[MossRoad]

I do not remember reading what a owls territory range may be, but most raptors, 10 miles is a drop in the bucket.

I know I saw a flock of bald eagles last year out in a farm field almost 20 miles from their nesting sight at Salamonie Reservoir

We've been seeing bald eagles all over Indiana that last few years. They are quite common especially along the Wabash and all of it's tributaries. We saw a couple in a field over by Mongo a couple months ago when out for a drive. Several in fields down between Peru and Wabash. Lots of them in downtown Lafayette/West Lafayette. Up hear at Potato Creek and north of South Bend at St. Pat's park. Baugo Creek over west of Elkhart. Ox Bow Park south of Elkhart. That's just the one's we've seen in the past 2 years.

 

[MossRoad]

Another tidbit, owls eat everything and barf up the bones and fur later. I’ve seen the leftovers before.

Owl pellets! :licking:

 

[MossRoad]

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