Eastern screech owl
| Eastern screech owl | ||||||||||
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Eastern Screech Owl ( Megascops asio ), gray color variant |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||
| Megascops asio | ||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
The Eastern Screech Owl or Eastern Screech Owl ( Megascops asio , Syn .: Otus asio ) is one of the smallest owls in America and belongs to the genus of the screech owls . It is named after its area of distribution, the eastern United States , and its screeching reputation. It was previously placed in the genus of the scops owls ( Otus ), together with all other American species it is now part of a separate genus, the screech owls ( Megascops ). It lives mainly in remote forests, but also in city parks and suburbs of larger cities.
features
Appearance
There are two color variants for the Eastern screech owls. One with red-brown plumage, there is also the gray color variant.
Young eastern screech owls are often confused with western screech owls because they do not yet have the characteristic dark dashed color on the back and tail . Since the habitats of the two species overlap in some places, such as in eastern Colorado and southern Texas , the only reliable feature for determining the species is the beak color, which is grayish-light in the east screech owl and darker gray in the west screech owl until is black.
The supposed feather ears on the head are just camouflage aids for the owl, which at first glance looks like a broken branch. The actual ears are on the sides of the head. Their large eyes are highlighted in yellow and have a narrow black border.
anatomy
The size and weight of the Eastern Screech Owl show a sexual dimorphism : adult females reach an average body length of 23 cm, males are 21 cm long. The wingspan averages 56 cm (females) and 54 cm (males), the weight 208 g (females) and 200 g (males).
call
Her call consists of a series of trembling and warbling whistles. Males usually call slightly lower than the females. The call is very penetrating and robs many campers sleep. There is a superstition that throwing horseshoes into the fire or pulling out trouser pockets will silence the owls.
Way of life
The eastern screech owls are almost exclusively nocturnal. During the day they sleep well hidden in a tree, with narrowed eyes and erect feather ears, with their head turned slightly to the side and the beak stuck in the plumage. At dusk they become active and sit on a branch and look carefully for prey. After dark, they mostly rely on their hearing. You can fly very fast and agile with up to 5 wing beats per second, but also sail and glide.
Eastern screech owls can live to be over 20 years old in captivity .
Habitat
The Eastern screeching owls live in mixed forests , woods and shrubbery , but they have little fear of people, so that they are occasionally at home in cultural landscapes such as plantations or in city parks . Most often, however, they are found in remote forests.
The animals live all year round in a certain territory of 4 to 6 hectares (in extreme cases also up to 80 hectares), which has sleeping places, food and breeding opportunities. It can happen that the areas of different specimens overlap, which then usually ignore each other. However, during the breeding season, all intruders are driven away from within 30 meters of the nest. If a person or a large animal comes too close, both parents rush at the intruder and often risk their lives in the process.
Reproduction
In February, at the beginning of the breeding season , the male lures his partner with a special call to a selected breeding site, which can be a knothole , a woodpecker hole or a dovecote or nest box . In the latter two cases, the previous owners are mostly killed. The breeding site is at a height of two to six meters, in exceptional cases up to 15 m. After mating, the female lays her three to eight white eggs every two days, which are incubated for about 26 days, mainly by herself, while the male gets food. Once the white-feathered and blind cubs have hatched, they must be constantly fed. After six days they can finally see. The plumage becomes gray or brownish over time. They leave the nest for the first time at 14 to 20 days and often sit together on trees that they cannot leave without their parents. After four to six weeks, the boys are finally completely independent and leave their parents.
food
The food of the Eastern Screech Owl is very diverse. It eats small mammals (such as voles , shrews , flying squirrels , moles and bats ) as well as birds (such as quails , robes , waxwings and pigeons ), locusts that it catches in flight, fish , amphibians and sometimes snakes .
The prey is grasped with the toes and claws . If the prey is not too big, it is swallowed completely, head first, otherwise it is first torn apart with the powerful beak and swallowed piece by piece.
Spread and threat
The distribution area extends from the middle of North America to the east coast and from Mexico to southern Canada . In general, it can still be found there frequently. In addition to tracking by some farmers and foresters it is also used by Minks , weasels , skunks , larger owls as snowy owls and great horned owls adjusted.
Subspecies
The Eastern Screech School has seven subspecies , two of which have their own variety .
- Megascops asio asio
- Megascops asio ocreatus
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Megascops asio maxwelliae
- Megascops asio swenki
- Megascops asio naevius
- Megascops asio hasbroucki
- Megascops asio floridanus
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Megascops asio mccallii
- Megascops asio semplei
Web links
- Entry on Owlpages.com
- Images on Owlpages.com
- Entry on Avibase
- Megascops asio in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2008. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2008. Accessed January 31 of 2009.
- Videos, photos and sound recordings of Otus asio in the Internet Bird Collection
Individual evidence
- ↑ www.owlpages.com , accessed July 29, 2009