Hoo are You? Hoo-Hoo, Hoo Hoo - Owlets

Photo by Jim Dublinski

Look to the skies, as this is the time you might start seeing Great Horned Owlets before they fledge.  In Arizona, the adults often nest in Jan-Feb, and eggs hatch in about 30 days.  To develop strong leg muscles, the fledglings walk several weeks before they fly, and are called "branchers."  Owlets have great appetites, like human teenagers, eating up to 17 mice a day (adults maybe 4.)  Rabbits are preferred snacks for owls, but they can carry prey up to three times their weight.  I was happy to learn that they also eat scorpions.  Owl eyes are as large as man's, oblong, and are so large, they cannot move, so owls turn their heads to see well, up to 270 degrees!  Their eyes have a special structure that bounces light on the rods twice, turning night into day.  And they have that cool nictitating membrane that cleans the eye without shutting it. Hearing is acute, too, with facial discs focusing the sound, and one ear higher than the other, creating 3-D sound, which allows owls to attack without seeing.  (PS-the horns aren't horns or ears, only tufts, which they use as body language.  You don't want to mess with an owl whose tufts are flattened, like a dog flattens his ears.)  Their only natural enemy is other raptors, and man.