Great Horned Owl
Bubo Virginianus
Whoo's busiest in January?
Great Horned Owls are very busy in January. Not only are they looking for their favorite food item--skunks--January is the beginning of their breeding season. The males use their distinctive "hoot" call to tell females that they have set up a territory and are looking for a mate. The females respond with their own call to let the male know that they want to enter and that they are not a rival male. A male that enters another male's territory will be attacked.
After breeding, the pair of owls will use an old crow or hawk nest to lay their eggs in late February or early March. The Great Horned Owl is the earliest nesting bird in New England.
About our Great Horned Owl at Ecotarium
We received our female great horned owl from Tufts Wildlife Clinic on 11/19/91. She was severely emaciated and her right leg was paralyzed. Vets suspected she had nerve damage due to electrocution.
She would have been a candidate for rehabilitation and release except for one problem: she is incapable of catching live food. Owls are raptors that depend on their powerful feet to catch their prey, and her right foot was paralyzed.
Since she couldn't survive in the wild, the Ecotarium was happy to provide her with a safe haven and give our visitors the chance to see one of these "tigers of the sky" up close. You can see her at the end of the wildlife trail, near Kenda the Polar Bear.