Owls of North America - Softcover

Backhouse, Frances

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1770852328 ISBN 13: 9781770852327

Publisher: Firefly Books, 2013

Synopsis

Heavily illustrated with beautiful, clear photographs.
-- Booklist

Owls are almost everywhere. These distinctive birds populate every continent except Antarctica and survive in everything from arid desert to arctic tundra to dense rain forest.

Frances Backhouse provides an in-depth yet lively study of these fascinating birds. Topics include anatomy and adaptations, mating behaviors, egg laying and chick rearing, feeding habits, communication displays and location.

Superbly designed birds of prey, owls are equipped with highly effective tools for killing and dismembering their prey: strong feet with curved, stiletto-like talons and a sturdy hooked bill with razor-sharp cutting edges. What makes owls unique is that most of them hunt in darkness from dusk to dawn using their keen hearing, enhanced low-light vision and sound-muffling structures on their flight feathers.

With detailed profiles of and range maps for all 23 species, along with 70 color photographs illustrating key behavioral characteristics, Owls of North America is a solid reference for birders, naturalists and general readers.

About this title

About the Author:

Frances Backhouse has written articles on wildlife and the environment for numerous magazines, among them Audubon and Equinox. Her books include Woodpeckers of North America.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Introduction

Owls and Humans

From ancient myth to Harry Potter, owls hold an enduring place in the human imagination. In some cultures they are revered, in others, feared. And for every superstition that associates owls with good fortune, a dozen more link them to mortality, sickness or evil. A small sample of the hundreds of legends, beliefs and customs that invoke owls gives a sense of the prominent and diverse roles in which these birds have been cast.

On the positive side, Aboriginal tradition in some parts of Australia holds that owls guard women's souls, and women are directed to look after their female kin by protecting owls. In South America pygmy-owls are kept as cage birds because they are believed to bring their owners luck and success in love. The Ainu people of northern Japan considered Blakiston's eagle-owl to be a divine ancestor and would drink a toast to it before setting out on hunting expeditions. Greek mythology links the goddess of wisdom, Athene, to owls, and this connection is commemorated in the name of the genus to which the burrowing owl belongs.

Associations between owls and death are prominent, widespread and sometimes very specific. In the southwestern United States, Pima Indian custom dictates that a feather molted by a living owl be placed in the hand of a dying person so that the owl can safely guide that person on the journey from life to death. In Sicily the Eurasian scops-owl is a messenger of death; its call near the house of a sick man announces that he will die within three days. For the Zapotec people of southern Mexico, the barn owl delivers the bad news and fetches the soul of the deceased. In Louisiana, Cajuns whose sleep was disturbed by the calling of eastern screech-owls used to turn their left shoe upside down or their left trouser pocket inside out to cancel this ill omen.

The scientific nomenclature of owls reflects historical European connections between owls and sorcery. The Greek word for witch, strix, is used to name one genus, and its Latin derivative, striga, names the order Strigiformes, to which all owls belong. Owls are also associated with witchcraft in other parts of the world. Such beliefs are strong and persistent in many parts of Africa, resulting in a significant number of owl killings. Similarly, the persecution of stygian owls in Hispaniola arises from superstitions about these owls transforming themselves into witches.

The earliest known depictions of owls are found in caves in southwestern France and date back to the Upper Paleolithic period, 15,000 to 20,000 years ago. The ear tufts on an owl painted on a wall in the Crotte Chauvet cave suggest an eagle-owl or long-eared owl. In the Trois Frères cave the etched outline of a pair of snowy owls and their young recalls a time when this species occurred much farther south than it does today. A number of Australian caves also harbor ancient paintings of owls, the work of early Aboriginal artists.

Other evidence that humans have long been enthralled by these birds includes the mummified remains of barn owls in ancient Egyptian tombs. The Egyptians also used owl symbols in their hieroglyphics, as did the Mayans. Among the oldest written documents that make reference to owls are the Bible and Pliny's Historia Naturalis, and, somewhat later, the works of Shakespeare.

Historically, owls have not fared well at the hands of humans. Because of their alleged supernatural powers, their body parts have often been used in folk medicines and magic rituals. Some traditions, such as the widespread African custom of eating owl's eyes to improve night vision, have obvious origins, but others are more obscure. In Morocco suspicious husbands or fathers were advised to place the right eye of a Eurasian eagle-owl in the hand of a sleeping wife or daughter so that she would truthfully report on her daytime activities. Pliny, however, suggested laying the heart of a "screech owl" (the species now known as the barn owl) on the left side of a sleeping woman to induce her to reveal her own heart's secrets.

Pliny also offered a recipe to treat heavy bleeding that required boiling a barn owl in oil, then adding ewe's-milk butter and honey. In Yorkshire, England, owl soup was at one time prescribed as a remedy for whooping cough, while in Poland rheumatism was said to be cured by burning owl feathers over a charcoal fire or eating baked owl. In Uruguay burrowing owl is traditionally served to convalescents to stimulate their appetite. Chinese traditional medicine makes extensive use of owl body parts, and many owls are still killed in Asia to meet the demand.

Culinary traditions that treat owls simply as food are less common. In North America the species most commonly eaten for nourishment in the past was probably the snowy owl, which some Inuit hunters still take as game. John James Audubon sampled the meat of a snowy owl that he had dissected for scientific purposes and declared it to be "not disagreeable eating." Great gray owls were reportedly trapped for food by some northern Native peoples.

With the colonization of North America by Europeans, owl mortality increased greatly. Most settlers had little interest in eating owls, but they didn't hesitate to kill them. As biologist Arthur Cleveland Bent noted in 1937, "Owls have few enemies except man; unfortunately they are usually shot on sight, because they are big and are picturesque as mounted specimens, or because they are supposed to destroy game and domestic poultry."

While education and legal prohibitions have largely put an end to the intentional killing of owls in North America, humans continue to exert a negative influence on many of the continent's species, with habitat destruction being the number-one cause of population declines. Some North American owls, including the great horned and the mottled, seem to be fairly tolerant of the changes humans have wrought upon the landscape over the past century, and a few species have expanded into new territory, apparently in response to habitat modifications. But even as the barred owl and the western screech-owl spread into new areas, there are hints that their numbers are dropping within their original range.

The majority of owl species in North America have a more restricted distribution and smaller populations than they did a hundred years ago. Among those whose situation is most critical are the burrowing owl, the ferruginous pygmy-owl and the spotted owl. In each case the greatest threat to the species' long-term survival is loss of vital habitat. Whether the cause is industrial logging or urban sprawl, the conversion of grasslands to croplands or the damming and diversion of rivers, the end result is the same: a place that was once a welcoming home is no longer habitable.

Ultimately, whether we can maintain the continent's full diversity of owl species and subspecies will depend on our knowledge of their particular ecological requirements and our willingness to accommodate those needs. Individuals who want to play a role in owl conservation can get involved in a number of ways. For many cavity-nesting owls, nest boxes are a satisfactory substitute for natural cavities or old woodpecker nest holes. Barn owls are especially dependent on humans to provide housing. If you have suitable habitat on your property you can put up an owl box or two at home. Or you can sign up with one of the many programs that rely on volunteers to build, erect and maintain nest boxes. Other opportunities for members of the public to contribute to owl research include reporting sightings (for example, through www.ebird.org), participating in Christmas bird counts or other surveys, and helping with banding efforts such as those that have been so central to revealing the mysteries of northern saw-whet owl migration.

Above all, you can get to know these enigmatic birds better, moving beyond myth and superstition to a deeper understanding of the fascinating realities of their lives.

About this edition

• Publisher: Firefly Books
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1770852328
• ISBN 13: 9781770852327
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 216