Hooters in Northfield

Northfield hooter

Northfield hooterEric Johnson sent me these photos last week of an owl perched on his patio porch light.

What kind of owl is it? (Hint: it doesn’t hoot.)

4 Comments

  1. Kiffi Summa said:

    looks a bit big for Eastern Screech owl (average 8 and 1/2 “) and too small for a Great Horned owl (average 22”)… but the behavior… perched on prominent place at dusk to hunt… is typical for a GHO. (This from Sibley Guide to Birds)

    Beautiful; how lucky to have seen it!

    February 5, 2010
  2. Patrick Enders said:

    Looks like a Screech.

    February 5, 2010
  3. Paul Zorn said:

    Yup, I’d say an Eastern Screech, partly from the size and partly from the fact that the breast is vertically barred — Great Horned Owls have strong horizontal bars.

    Cool!

    By the way, GHO’s are common right in town, though seldom seen, at least by me. I heard a couple of them hooting in the classical way one night a week or two ago on the east side of Manitou St.

    February 5, 2010
  4. Patrick Enders said:

    The last (only) time I saw screech owls up close was circa 1978, inside the office of Dr. Charles Kemper of Chippewa Falls WI.

    Apart from treating humans, he also cared for injured birds – including a pair of blind screech owls which he kept because they would not be able to survive in the wild.

    Thanks to the miracle of Google, I found this reference to those screech owls:
    http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1368&dat=19830430&id=19YVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=SxIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6492,6738956

    I’m also glad to see that Dr. Kemper’s land is being turned into a nature preserve:
    http://www.chippewa.com/articles/2007/04/21/news/945q.txt

    February 5, 2010

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