This Eastern Screech-Owl is one of the smaller owl species. An injustice has been done to label it with this name because its call is in no way a “screech.” The voice of a Screech-Owl is a soft trill that is quite pleasing. It normally stands about eight inches but if it feels apprehensive, it will stretch up taller and skinny. In this pose, with only one ear-tuft erected, the owl resembles a broken off tree branch. Robert Benson Photo.
Everyone loves owls, especially the little owls. What is it about owls? What makes them so cute?
Perhaps it is their large, forward-facing eyes. An owl will stare at you as though it knows you, or at least it seems to know what you are. It will blink slowly every so often. The blinking and the occasional wink give the impression that the bird is confident, maybe even confiding.
Their upright stance and slightly portly shape add to the impression of a miniature human. A relatively large, round head balanced on a short neck completes the image of a short, bookish detective. Think Hercule Poirot of Agatha Christie fame!
There are 19 species of owls in North America. The larger species include the Great Horned Owl, the Snowy Owl, and the Great Gray Owl. The smaller species include the Screech-Owls, the Pygmy-Owls, and the tiny Elf Owl.
Most people know of the Great Horned Owl; quite a few of us have actually seen one. At close to two feet tall, they are hard to overlook. Plus Great Horned Owls often can be seen in the daytime and their low “hoo-hoodoo-hooo-hoo” sounds like an owl should. Their ear-tufts, or “horns” are just feathers that stick up on the tops of their heads. These horns give the bird its distinctive silhouette.
Screech-Owls have a similar silhouette but on a much smaller frame. They stand about eight inches tall. However, all owls can scrunch down and Screech-Owls can appear to be only about five inches tall. They lower their ear-tufts and thus display a round-headed look. Or if they feel threatened, they can stretch out so long, tall and thin, that they look more like a rough tree snag than a bird. In this pose, the owl may erect only one ear-tuft; this adds to the impression of a broken off branch.
The species of Screech-Owl we have in this part of Texas is the Eastern Screech-Owl. It comes in two colors. The color phase we generally see is the gray form. The reddish phase is much more common in the eastern states. Both color phases have pale lemon-yellow eyes.
Although common in towns, suburbs, and rural areas throughout its range, the Screech-Owl is seldom seen. Its camouflaged appearance, small size, and strictly nocturnal feeding habits combine to make it an almost cryptic species. Screech-Owls are more often heard than seen. Even so, if you think you are hearing a Screech-Owl making its “horrible screech” you are probably not hearing a Screech-Owl at all. The distantly related Barn Owl utters a skin-crawling screech on the wing as it hunts at night. This is the call that most people have wrongly associated with the “misnamed” Screech-Owl.
Allan W. Eckert in his The Owls of North America (1974) gave his opinion on this owl’s unfortunate name: “A great injustice has been done to the Screech-Owl by labeling it with such a name, for its call is by no stretch of the imagination a screech. Rather, it is a quite charming sound, imbued with a pleasantly poignant and plaintive quality. It is a mellow, muted trill which is quavering and lugubrious and which descends rapidly in tonal quality toward the end of the call.”
In fact, Screech-Owls have quite a repertoire of calls. The commonest call is that muted trill that Eckert described as a sort of “wet whistling” sound. He said it has a “sweet weirdness” that some people claim is eerie. No wonder Screech-Owls have also been called Demon Owls, and Spirit Owls. But a better name would be Quavering Owl, or even Squinch Owl (for its habit of squinching its eyes to mere slits).
In spite of their small size, Screech-Owls have the reputation of being quite fierce. They are especially protective of their young. In one instance, a nesting pair in a city park attacked so many people that the local police shot the birds (illegally). That happened years ago. I like to think that nowadays, the local police would have cordoned off the nest site for a few weeks.
These brave little owls have quite a history as savage hunters. They will snatch large moths right out of the air. With their incredibly sensitive hearing, they can detect the minute sounds of mice from under the leaf litter. They hone in on hidden prey with uncanny accuracy. Still, one story is hard to believe. Bent in his Life Histories of North American Birds of Prey recounted this tale: “some years ago in Mendham, New Jersey, a Screech-Owl came down the chimney of a residence, entered the front room, flew directly to a canary’s cage, and pulled the small yellow bird through the bars and swallowed it whole.”
After such a disturbing story, you probably won’t believe me when I tell you that Eastern Screech-Owls can be remarkably gentle. Eckert says they have an “ordinarily placid disposition.” They have been kept as pets and as falconer’s birds. Even as a captive bird, it makes an affectionate and companionable animal. If surprised by an intruder, it may “snap its beak in a most menacing manner, but will rarely follow through with an actual attack.” Instead, a captive Screech-Owl will sit quietly on its human’s head or shoulder. Occasionally, it will “ask” to have its head scratched or its plumage stroked.
Whatever picture you choose to keep in your head of an Eastern Screech-Owl, I hope you won’t be afraid of it. They are small, efficient hunters in our nighttime landscapes. They help control the populations of rodents and insects. And they make that sweetly weird, eerie trill that is in no way a screech!
ESSAY BY KAREN L. P. BENSON
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