Owl

The owl gets its name from its courtship call, which sounds like boo-boo-boo. And because he is the largest owl in the world, he is also called “King of the Night”.

Characteristics

What do eagle owls look like?

The eagle owl belongs to the owl family and is a nocturnal bird. Like all owls, eagle owls differ significantly from other birds:

Their heads are large, they have round faces, and both of their eyes are forward-facing. The plumage of the eagle owl is mottled brown-beige. This makes them excellently camouflaged. Most notable are the large tufts of feathers on the ears and the large, bright orange eyes. It is typical of eagle owls that they can turn their heads by up to 270 degrees so that they can see their surroundings from all sides.

Eagle owls are the largest members of their family: they grow to 60 to 70 centimeters and have a wingspan of 150 to 180 centimeters. This makes them just a bit smaller than a golden eagle. But while a golden eagle weighs four to six kilograms, eagle owls are surprisingly light: they weigh just two to 3.2 kilograms. In the other owl species, males and females are about the same size, but the male owls are significantly smaller than the female owls.

Where do eagle owls live?

Of all eagle-owl species, our European eagle owl has the largest distribution area: it occurs from Portugal to Japan and from Finland to India. He also lives from northern Africa to Niger and Sudan. In Europe, it is even more common in Spain and Portugal, as well as southern France, the southern Alps, the Apennines, and the Balkans, as well as Scandinavia and Russia. In Central Europe, it has disappeared from many regions because it was hunted heavily for a long time. Today, only several hundred pairs of eagle owls live in Switzerland, Austria, and Germany.

Eagle Owls are very adaptable birds and can do well in many different habitats. They live in plains and high mountains, in steppes and dense forests, and even in deserts. It is important that they find enough food and breeding caves as well as sufficient hiding places for the day.

What types of eagle owls are there?

There are around 160 different species of owls worldwide. There are twelve different types of owls themselves. The two largest are our eagle owl and the Blassuhu, which lives in Africa. The other eagle owls are much smaller. They include the African pygmy eagle-owl, Nepalese eagle-owl, American eagle-owl, spotted eagle-owl, Kapuhu, Sun owl, Philippine eagle-owl, and dusky eagle-owl. Eagle owls can look different depending on where they come from: eagle-owls from Scandinavia, for example, are quite large and dark, while those from the deserts of central Asia are relatively small and yellow-brown in color.

How old do eagle owls get?

Eagle owls live to be around 25 to 30 years old. They can live much longer in captivity: the record is held by an eagle owl that lived to be 68 years old.

Behave

How do eagle owls live?

Eagle owls have always exerted a very special fascination on people: With their large, forward-facing eyes, the face of an eagle owl is somewhat reminiscent of that of humans. They are also considered to be particularly wise and clever. And the fact that they still fascinate people today is shown by the magic owls in the Harry Potter books. Eagle owls are mainly active at dusk and at night. Towards evening they begin to hunt.

Eagle owls are perfectly adapted to life in the twilight and at night. They have eyes with particularly large lenses that can optically amplify even the smallest amounts of light. In addition, their retina has many more sensors than the human eye. For this reason, they can see light and dark particularly well. However, owls cannot perceive colors as well as other birds. Thus spend the day well hidden. They sit close to a tree trunk or hidden under a rock If they are surprised there, they use a cunning trick to make enemies flee: they widen their eyes, ruffle their feathers, spread their wings, and turn them forward.

They hiss and rattle their beaks. And because eagle owls are so big, this threatening gesture makes them look really frightening: the fox or hawk is so frightened that the eagle owl has enough time to flee. Eagle owls live in fixed territories, where you can watch them again and again. They share this territory with their partner, with whom they remain together for life.

Nevertheless, eagle owls are true loners: the pair may live in the same territory, but they usually hunt and sleep separately. This only changes at the beginning of the year, when the mating season approaches in February. With his typical courtship call “both-both-both”, the male owl shows his rivals that his territory is occupied. At the same time, he attracts his partner, who replies with a soft hu-hu.

Friends and foes of the owls

The greatest enemy of the eagle owl is man: for a long time, the magnificent birds were hunted because the hunters believed that the eagle owls competed with them for hares, partridges, and pheasants. Another danger is the wires of the high-voltage pylons, in which owls often have accidents. Today eagle owls are protected and attempts are even being made to reintroduce them. Natural enemies are foxes and hawks.

How do eagle owls reproduce?

From mid-March to mid-April, the female eagle owl usually lays two to three, sometimes up to five, eggs weighing around 75 grams over the course of two to four days. Eagle owls don’t build nests but lay their eggs in rock niches and caves. If they live in forests, they sometimes lay their eggs between tree roots in hollows in the ground. Once they have found a suitable breeding cave, they usually use it as a nursery every year.

The female incubates the eggs alone for five weeks. During this time it is fed by the male. When the young have finally hatched, the male brings further food, which the female chops into small pieces with her beak and feeds to the young. Freshly hatched eagle owls are completely helpless: the spherical chicks are blind and initially wear a downy, grey-white downy coat that later turns brownish-yellow.

About a week after hatching, they open their eyes, and after about three weeks they start crawling around the eyrie. At the age of six to seven weeks, they finally do gymnastics on foot through the undergrowth and explore the surroundings. They fledge at nine to ten weeks and accompany their parents on the hunt.

By autumn, they will learn from their parents what an owl needs to survive. Only then are they independent and leave their parents. In the first two to three years of life, young eagle owls travel a great deal until they finally become sexually mature, find their own territory, and settle down just like their parents.

How do eagle owls hunt?

Hunting eagle owls sit quietly on rocks or branches and lie in wait for every movement and sound in their surroundings. Once they have spotted prey, they glide swiftly and silently toward it, grab the prey with their prehensile feet, which are about the span of a human hand, carry it to a raised spot, and kill and eat it there.

How do eagle owls communicate?

In addition to the typical owl calls, the owls can also make gurgling, croaking, and giggling noises.

Care

What do eagle owls eat?

Eagle owls are not choosy when it comes to food, and their menu is extensive: from foxes to bats, they hunt everything that their habitat offers. They mostly eat beetles, frogs, shrews, rabbits, martens, and weasels; even fish and snakes are among their prey. But they don’t stop at hawks, buzzards, and smaller owls either. Researchers have found that eagle owls prey on over 110 different species of mammals and 140 different species of birds.