…was a Ruru, or Morepork (Ninox novaeseelandiae).

It’s NZ’s only remaining native owl (the Laughing owl was last recorded in 1914), and is fairly common in many habitats, even parks and gardens, but is especially numerous in tracts of native bush.  We heard them several places, mostly in the Kauri Forest while on a night walk looking for Kiwi.  They whinny and whoo and screek, but their main call is, not surprisingly, “More-pore” repeated frequently.  If you live where there are Inca Doves, you know what a Morepork sounds like.  Inca doves’ call is usually transcribed as “whirl-pool” or “no-hope”, but in pitch, frequency, and tone, it’s very much like the owl’s call.  The Māori name, Ruru, is also onomatopoetic, as is the Australian name, (Southern) Boobook.

Ruru is a relatively small (approx 10″ ht), long-tailed owl that takes a range of prey but specializes in nocturnal insects like weta (large crickets — really large crickets!), huhu beetles and moths.

(Photo by Aviceda from Wikimedia Commons)

There’s a property of owls I call “Half-Dome Head.”  It’s a shape that’s noticeable in the profile of all owls, particularly the larger ones.  The Barred Owl to the right is exhibiting major Half-Dome Head.  If Half-Dome Head can be achieved when making owls in clay, the resulting effigies will be Especially Owly.

The name derives from the famous granitic dome formation, Half Dome, in Yosemite Valley, California, which bears an obvious resemblance to an owl’s head in profile.  The geologic Half Dome is forming largely by weathering: eons of sheet-exfoliation on the fragmented face of an exposed granodioritic batholith gave it the shape we see today.  (Appropriately, one of the most Half-Dome-Headed owls ever, the regal Great Gray Owl, is an uncommon resident of Yosemite Valley, see photo below: the color and texture even match).

In owls, the “Half-Dome Head” effect arises from the front of the Owl’s head (in other words its face, to use the technical term) being shaped like a radar dish, to be efficient at gathering sensory input — in other words, light and sound.  But take away the feathers and an owl’s cranium is shaped pretty much like a hawk’s, or even a chicken’s skull (check out these images).  An owl is after all a bird, albeit a fairly specialized one, so it’s built like a bird.  The forward-oriented flat face that we humans find so fascinating (probably for anthropocentric reasons) is due more to posture and feather-arrangement than underlying skeletal structure: the owl generally holds its bill slightly downward rather than forward like other birds.  This gives prominence to the distinctive “facial disc” — the specialized array of radar-dish-like plumage around an owl’s eyes and ears — and positions it so it functions optimally.

The owl’s Facial Disc is a precise specialization for nocturnal hunters who require every available bit of light and sound directed into their sensory apparatus to ensure the highest possible success rate while hunting.  Several features of the facial disc are noticeable: short flat-lying feathers sweep away from the eyes and “cheeks” so as not to impede forward vision; stiff vertically-arranged feathers edging the facial disc help funnel sound into the ear openings, which are asymetrically arranged on either side of the face behind the eye to create aural parallax (and are nowhere near the cranial tufts we commonly call “ears”); and rictal bristles (“whiskers”), which are specialized sensitive filamental feathers on either side of the gape (the flexible corners of the mouth which allow the beak to open and close), that enable the owl to perform preening and feeding activities — including the feeding of owlets — by feel, since their large eyes are immovable in the skull and so can’t focus efficiently at very close ranges.

But that’s just the flat front of the “Half-Dome”: the round back, the helmet-shaped fullness of feathers on the back of an owl’s head also transmits owliness to our perception.  This is also due to the owl’s skeletal configuration: the bird’s upright posture is possible because its skull is joined to a nearly vertical spine.  Most birds’ backs go off at a more or less right angle to their necks (think of a dove), somewhat shortening the curve at the back of the head.  But the feathers on the back of an owl’s head arc smoothly down to the back, which continues downward steeply.  The photo above shows Half-Dome head creating Owliness in an MLO (Moderately Large Owl) I’m currently working on for a client.

Photos: from top to bottom: IBO barred owl, A.Shock; Half Dome Yosemite, Carroll Ann Hodges, USGS; Great Gray owl, Canada (Sorry; don’t know who to credit this photo to); Three Star Owl “eared” owl effigy in progress, A.Shock.  And finally, a Gratuitous Cranky Owlet chillin’ with the Big Boys…

…a true kindred spirit:

Adult Burrowing owl giving the entire world StinkEye at the Adobe Mountain Wildlife Center display at Boyce Thompson Arboretum’s “Welcome Back Buzzards Day”. (Photo A.Shock)

Great news!  Sharon Stiteler of Birdchick.com fame ran a contest for guest-bloggers while she’s out of the country, and Three Star Owl is her selection for Friday’s guest post!  Regular Three Star Owl readers will recognize the entry as a post from this web journal, Vertical Napping Bark, which is one of my favorites because of the lucky shot of the Great horned owl with downy chick in a snag, demonstrating the beauty of Owly Invisibility very well.

[The image to the right is a digitally-altered photo of the breast feather vermiculation (= Latin for "wormy pattern") that makes Great horned owls so invisible.]

If you’ve found your way to Three Star Owl from the Birdchick site, Welcome (Cranky Owlet says Hmph!), and take a look around: there’s lots of birdy art in the Gallery and Shop, and posts at the Journal on a variety of topics like birds, clay art, natural history and more!  Make yourself at home, and come back any time.

Thanks, Sharon, and have a great time in Guatemala!

Oh, and in my excitement, I forgot to mention that Swarovski Optik, makers of excellent binox and scopes, and beeooteeful crystal, is helping Sharon sponsor the contest.

This is a Spectacled Owl from the recent Veracruz trip. Spectacled owls are boldly patterned, unsociable owls of tropical forests of Central and South America. This one flew silently in to check us out from its perch high in the canopy, and suffered to have its photo snapped illuminated only by a flashlight, and no magnification. They sport an excellent Latin name: Pulsatrix perspicillata, meaning “female pulsating one” referring to its accelerating pup-pup-pup-upupup call (Pulsatrix-perspicillata-1.mp3), and “conspicuous”, referring to its striking markings.

(Top photo A. Shock, Three Star Owl.)

To the left is a clearer photo of what a Spectacled owl looks like in daylight, taken in the London Zoo.

My friend Kate McKinnon recently posted that she has a hard time seeing owls in the wild, and she takes it personally. Well she should, because an owl’s Primary Goal other than to eat something, is to escape detection, by you, by me, by a thoughtless human with a crossbow, by the other bigger owl, by sharp-eyed prey, and by Kate McKinnon. We are all of us intended to Not See Owls.

Owls have many tools for escaping detection: cryptic coloration, shifting outline often modified with cranial feather tufts, motionless roosting, self-effacing habits, and nearly silent flight. They are chromosomally adept at Hiding in Plain Sight.

Seeing an owl is a lightning bolt, a mistake, a gift, a shock, a plot by crabby song birds. A sighting is usually because someone who knows where an owl day-roosts points it out, or we hear one call and get a glimpse as it glides across a dark sky, or because wrens and chickadees and jays fink it out. If the owl is seen, a small owl will shrink or stretch, and squint to hide its telltale eyes; a big owl might merely turn its head, or not, because though it prefers to not be seen, it isn’t too worried since you cannot fly. If you spot an owl don’t point or wave the hands, it might make it flee. If you remain still and quiet, they often will too, allowing a few photos, especially if they are rock stars like certain Mexican spotted owls in southeastern Arizona, who frequently host googly-eyed camera-toting visitors like me in their woods.

Here are some things to do if you wish to see an owl: put up a nest box; go on an owl prowl (check Audubon groups and raptor education outfits in your area); keep your ears open; look for owl pellets and whitewash under horizontal boughs close to the trunk; inspect the tops of saguaros at dusk; look in every tree/cactus hole you know of that’s above head height; go into the woods at night; watch the news (urban owls often wind up on TV, like the famous Scottsdale Safeway Urn-nesting Great horned owls); make secret offerings to the Great Owly Entity. But remember, owls’ desire to escape detection is greater than our ability to find them. Good luck, and Good Owling.

photos by A. Shock: Great horned owl with downy chick manifesting as barkless tree skin, San Pedro River, AZ; Mexican Spotted owl pair manifesting as dappled sunlight through branches, Huachuca Mountains, AZ.

Last night was a busy night in the yard. Well, I suppose they’re all busy nights, but last night I was awake to appreciate it. Before human bedtime, the geckos were at their posts under the porch lights (our yard residents are the non-native Mediterranean Geckos, not the indigenous Western Banded, but they’re still charmingly rubbery voracious devourers of insects, especially moths), and the Butte was going off sporadically, the coyote pack’s yelps ricocheting off the slickrock. There might have been the sharp yip of a Gray Fox, which also inhabit the neighborhood, but it was faint. Somewhere, the spadefootlets must have been hopping around foraging in the dark, as well.

After “bedtime” though, things really got going. A female raccoon marauded past the bedroom trailed by at least one kit from this year. Last year there were two separate families, one with two, the other with three kits each. That’s a lot of pounds of raccoons living off the yard, plus Papa, too, who has only half of a tail, diminishing his raccoon-gestalt but not his swagger. We’re not sure how many there are this year, because our view of them is most often through the arcadia door, and sightings are limited to who rolls by the framed glass, like watching a dog show on the TV animal channel.

Last night the main event (for me), however, was again being awakened by an owl. Not the Great Horned owl this time, but an owl I’d never heard in our yard: a Western screech owl. They’re not uncommon in the area — I’ve seen them peering out from day-roosts in saguaro cavities at the nearby Desert Botanical Garden — but we’ve never heard or seen them in our little scrap of modified desert. This one called from just after 2 am until the Butte really exploded about half an hour later, when the owl stopped. Its mellow short hoots were emitted in a cluster which descended slightly at the end. It sounded much like the “Morse code call” of its cousin the Whiskered screech owl, but that species doesn’t live in this part of Arizona. The call was soft but regular, and started up again at 4 am, and went on for at least 45 minutes, when I fell back to sleep.

So far, like the generously rainy Monsoon of 2008, this has been a generously owly season in the yard, and this Western screech owl, who may always have been here, or who may be a new neighbor, ushered in fall last night; I’m glad I was awake to hear it. With luck maybe we’ll catch a glimpse of it sometime, hunting pocket mice and crickets under the desert trees. Right now, though, I think I need a nap: the first nap of Autumn!

“The northern autumnal equinox takes place today, Monday, Sept. 22nd, at 15:44 UT (11:44 a.m. EDT) when the sun crosses the celestial equator heading south for the year. Autumn begins in the northern hemisphere, and spring in the southern hemisphere. Happy equinox!” (Spaceweather.com)

***

Update to an earlier post:

Our local Great horned owl has a friend. Last night from about 4 am we listened to two owls duetting and singing antiphonally for about half an hour, the higher hoots of the female alternating with the lower calls of the male. It’s early in the year for coursthip, but my guess is that these are our usual, established owls reinforcing their pair bond.

Last night at 3.00am exactly, I heard the Great horned owl call. Very close, somewhere right in the back yard. The windows were open because a light monsoon event had brought fresh rain-cooled air, so the call, though soft, carried clearly.

Great horned owls are regulars in our area because there are plenty of perches, and plenty for them to eat. A favorite owly destination is a big Aleppo pine in our back yard. At night that tree is stuffed with roosting doves and other perching birds, a veritable Fresh and Easy for owls. Sitting outside at dark with friends, we’ve watched a horned owl glide stealthily into mid-level branches and then listened as panic ensued among the roosting doves as the owl hopped between branches as if it were going aisle to aisle in a grocery store, filling a cart. Finally it burst out of the needles with a meal clutched in its talons. We got a good look at it is it slid past us, sihouetted against the lights of the house. The feather pool under the pine the next morning was evidence that it had enjoyed a bit of mourning dove.

They are not called “Flying tigers” for nothing. Horned owls, like toadlets, will eat anything that moves and fits down the gullet. Rock squirrels, snakes, desert cottontails, other birds (even other owls), insects, and bats — all are fair game. Even small pets may be at risk, if left unsupervised after dark. The first owl I ever saw was at the family dinner table when I was a kid: a thump, a commotion, and we looked up to see the underside of a Great horned owl pressed to the window, wings flapping against the glass. The owl was trying to separate the family cat (a calico named Ringo, to give you an idea how long ago this was) from the window ledge. A grown cat is awfully heavy prey, however, and the owl had to give up after a few seconds. No one was hurt, but the bird went away hungry. (It was a spectacular view of an owl in action, and I’ve wondered if that was THE bird for me, in a formative sense — I was no more than seven). The boldest hunters are often adults with young to feed — a nest full of hungry owlets requires a lot of sustenance. During that time of the year, parent owls sometimes can be seen hunting even during daylight, working a day job to put food on the table. So, hatching and fledging are timed to coincide with the local peak of yearly rodent production, usually spring, but in the desert areas often much earlier.

Our local owls have reproduced, and sometimes I’ve heard the distinctive, raspy oink of a horned owlet begging, installed on the top of a phone pole while its parents search the alleys for rats or young cottontails to stuff into it. (If you enjoy camping, you’ve heard a sound like it: the creak made by the plastic hinge on a cooler lid when it’s raised.) The female makes the same sound during courtship while soliciting her mate for food. In our area, courting owls can be seen and heard duetting on phone poles and rooftops, visible against the fading sunset sky. As they call together or alternately — the male and female have slightly different voices and cadences — they bow and “hoo.” She holds her tail up, soliciting attention from the male, who strikes a courtly pose to “sing,” tail raised and wings down, maximizing himself like an operatic baritone (he’s smaller than her). Here’s an excellent quote, where the author’s voice slides from ornithologist to owl, almost inadvertently:

“Courtship is fairly boisterous and involves bowing, bobbing, posturing, vocalizing, and allopreening. These elaborate activities lead, as one might hope, to copulation.” (from Hans Peeters, Field Guide to Owls of California and the West, my current favorite owl sourcebook. In the same series as the excellent book on Horned lizards, the California Natural History Guides, published by the UC Press)

If it’s still light enough while all this is going on, you can see flashes of white feathers at their throats, the “gular patch”, flashing as each hoot puffs the owl’s throat briefly. It’s a semaphore for them, like the feather tufts on the top of the head: a way of producing meaningful signals to each other: facial expressions without flexible tissue like lips or eyebrows.

As big, powerful generalist predators, Great horned owls can make it almost anywhere. Their range is right across the US and Canada through Central America and into northern South America. They live in urban, rural, and wilderness areas: desert, woodlands, mountains, wetlands, grasslands and cities, so the chances are you have them where you live, too. Keep an eye open, an ear cocked, and the Chihuahua in at night.

Below are Horned owl salt and pepper shakers from Three Star Owl. Each pair is an adult with an owlet in different stages of development ($48/pair).