Great horned owls set bodies to defrost
by Jan Bergstrom, South Carolina Times / 3 Jan 2014
Imagine being outside 24 hours a day, in January, in Minnesota. Imagine being an accomplished hunter, capable of caching extra food to get you through hard times. Then imagine having no source of heat to thaw this lifesaving cache to make it edible. What would you do?
If you were a great horned owl, you would incubate it. Great horned owls regularly stash extra food, but their razor sharp bills are made for shredding and tearing, not hammering away at a frozen piece of meat. Lacking any other way of breaking up the food, it does what any self-respecting predator would do: It sits on it until it thaws.
This is just one of the great horned owl’s adaptations that makes it master of the winter woods. Every inch of its body is adapted to surviving our cold, stressful winters.
More tricks
Owls’ facial discs consist of feathers that funnel sound toward their ears, allowing them to hear sounds that are one-tenth the volume that humans are capable of hearing. Their ears are small holes, one slightly larger and one slightly higher than the other. This allows sound to reach their ears at different times, allowing them to pinpoint the exact distance as well as the direction of the sound, even under a dense blanket of snow. Their hearing is so keen, they can hunt almost entirely by ear.
Great horned owls grow more camouflaged feathers in the winter to keep out the cold air. They seem oblivious to the brutal conditions. This allows them to perch tirelessly on branches, waiting for unsuspecting prey to venture into their territory. They also can cruise the night skies without going into a state of lowered metabolism like many other winter birds.
The front edges of the owl’s primary flight feathers are fringed, allowing air to pass noiselessly over them. Their prey never hears them coming as they swoop in for the prize.
Diet, habitat
Although mammals such as rabbits, squirrels, weasels, mice and cats make up 75 percent of the great horned owl’s diet, they also prey upon more than 50 species of birds. Songbirds in the winter huddle at night, often going into a state of controlled hypothermia. They seek refuge among dense branches of trees or beneath loose, peeling bark. Oblivious to the outside world, their heart rate decreases, breathing slows and metabolism drops. Picking the wrong spot can be fatal. Great horned owls use their superb vision to spot the sleeping avians, plucking them before they can even wake up.
Great horned owls have the largest range of any owl in North America. They are equally content in woods, fields, desert, grasslands, suburbs and just about any place south of the polar tree line. In our area, they tend to prefer farmland mixed with wooded areas, although they can be found anywhere, 24 hours a day, even in the winter. Keep your eyes open and you just may see one “incubating” its supper.
