22 inches long. The Great Horned Owl is a very large bird with prominent ear tufts. It has yellow eyes and a dark bill. The upperparts are mottled brown, gray, and black. The underparts are pale with fine brown bars. It has a reddish brown facial disk bordered by black with a lower border of white. It also has a white throat patch. The feet are large and powerful.
The Great Horned Owl is an uncommon permanent resident of the Forest.
The Great Horned Owl is a nocturnal hunter that becomes active at dusk. It is a powerful and long-lived bird with an extensive range from deserts to the arctic/alpine regions to forests. Its feathers are exceptionally soft, providing superb insulation and allowing for silent flight. It will aggressively defend its nest by even striking at humans. It is an early nester and females are able to maintain their eggs at incubating temperature near 37°C even when the ambient temperature is more than 70° colder. This species is a perch-and-pounce hunter. It has strong talons that allow it to sever the spinal column of prey even larger than itself. Its hooked beak efficiently tears meat from bones. The call is the familiar series of three to eight hoots of “Whoo! Whoo-whoo-whoo! Whoo! Whoo!”
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