With their intense, feline gaze, barred bodies, and fierce hunting skills, the Great Horned Owl has been called the “tiger of the air.” North America’s most widespread owl, this species is also one of its largest and most powerful. From their bright yellow eyes to their namesake “horns” and stately silhouettes, these storybook owls are as iconic as they are formidable.
Read on to learn why these apex predators put fear in the hearts of mammals, amphibians, and even other raptors. And why, with a low hoo hoo hoo-hoo-hoo echoing through the woods at dawn and dusk, they’re adored by bird-lovers across the continent.
1.) The Great Horned Owl lives nearly anywhere—from coniferous, deciduous, and swampy forests to deserts, suburbs, and city parks. Year-round, they can be found throughout most parts of Mexico, the United States, and Canada, except for far northern coastal areas. These birds are highly adaptable, and that’s partly down to their diet.
2.) No matter where they live, Great Horned Owls eat almost anything that moves—including prey larger than themselves. While they usually favor mammals, they aren’t picky; in fact, these owls have the most diverse diet of any North American raptor. Powerful predators, they’ll hunt everything from scorpions, frogs, and snakes to squirrels, rabbits, and even porcupines. With no natural predators of their own, they’ll also take on other larger raptors, including hawks, falcons, and Ospreys—both adults and chicks.
3.) In winter, some Great Horned Owls might freeze their food. Like many owls, they sometimes cache their prey, storing it for later. In northern regions, they’ve been known to let the leftovers freeze, then returning to “incubate” and thaw the frozen bits by sitting on them. After all, who can eat a whole goose in one go?
These owls are great parents, too, often mating for life and fiercely defending their fluffy-downed young.
4.) Unlike most birds, Great Horned Owls nest in winter—theirs being one of the earliest breeding seasons in North America. Pairs can start courting as early as December and lay eggs soon after. The owlets hatch by March and stay close to the nest well into summer. That gives them more time to learn survival skills from their parents, fledging just as spring provides baby mammals for hunting practice. Great Horned Owls are great parents, too, often mating for life and fiercely defending their fluffy-downed young.
5.) And unlike most owls, this species doesn’t usually nest in hollows or cavities, preferring to adopt or steal nests built mostly of sticks by other large species, like hawks, herons and crows. Other good real estate can be a cave, cliff ledge, or tree stump—or an artificial nest structure in your backyard.
6.) The male Great Horned Owl has a deeper voice and a larger syrinx, or voice box, than his female counterpart (the female’s body is larger, though). These owls—also known as “hoot owls” due to their classic owl calls—hoot to claim territory, warn off rivals, attract mates, and strengthen bonds between pairs. If you hear a pair duetting, often after sunset or just before dawn, you’ll notice an audible difference in pitch between male and female.
7.) Those horns aren’t actually horns, or ears. They’re tufts of feathers. The owl’s real ear holes are hidden underneath their head feathers just below the tufts, and they give the owl extreme accuracy when hunting—capable of pinpointing, say, a deer mouse rustling in the leaves at a distance.
8.)Great Horned Owls and other owl species are adapted to fly almost silently. Their feathers are velvety soft and fringed on the wings to muffle any flapping sound. This is doubly useful: Prey can’t hear them coming, but the owls can hear the prey as they approach. Owls have almost no sense of smell, making their excellent hearing and vision even more vital. A lack of smell can be an advantage, though—like when the birds prey on skunks.
9.) These owls have faces made for listening: Their concave “facial disc” acts like a satellite dish. The disc is framed by a ruff of stiff, dense black feathers, which funnel sound waves to their ears and further help them pinpoint prey. The color of their disc feathers varies regionally from gray to cinnamon tones, with cinnamon more common in the east.
10.) One of the Great Horned Owl’s closest living relatives is the Snowy Owl, the heaviest owl in North America. With the shared genus Bubo, their common ancestor lived in Eurasia. While the Snowy Owl’s ancestors headed to the Arctic tundra, the Great Horned Owl’s spread through the Americas. Both species are apex predators, with similar effects on their food webs—and where the Great Horned Owl’s range ends, the Snowy Owl’s begins.
Fact-checked by Kenn Kaufman, field editor, Audubon magazine.
