What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World's Most Enigmatic Birds

by Jennifer Ackerman

video on YouTube of a barn owl in Spain playing with a black cat, the two animals sitting side by side and then suddenly swatting, swooping, and pouncing at each other, then just as suddenly, rejoining to nuzzle. “That just blew me away,” he says, “because of all the owls, I would think that barn owls would be the least playful. But these animals are clearly playing.”

young Great Horned Owls spend six months with their parents learning survival skills,

other species like Barred Owls, which spend maybe six weeks with their parents—if that—learning the same types of skills, and yet they seem to pick them up more quickly.

In Chile, Argentina, and other countries, a variety of owl species—Rufous-legged, Lesser Horned, Austral Pygmy, and barn owls—hold down the population of hantavirus-bearing rice rats, protecting human health.

As apex predators, wolves of the sky, owls serve an important ecological role, preventing rodents and other prey from crowding out other species, and maintaining balance and preserving the integrity of ecosystems.

owls offer protection against predators for other bird species nesting nearby. Snowy Owls don’t tolerate skuas or Arctic Foxes near their nests, and studies show that Red-breasted Geese reproduce more successfully when they nest close to the nests of the big, aggressive owls. Songbirds nesting under the “predator protection” of Ural Owls in Finland enjoy a similar benefit. The owls chase away nest predators while defending their own nests, and also eat other predators in their territory, such as crows and weasels. The protective effect radiates several hundred yards from the nest. What a lovely upsetting of the traditional view of predator-prey relationships.

grasslands that served as their hunting grounds, from the threat of invasive species and rodenticides, and from the widespread effects of climate change. The

The loss of native habitat is the single greatest threat to owl populations. In the past centuries, urbanization, deforestation, and agricultural development have stripped many owls of their forest and grassland habitats.

What remains is often degraded by shifts in plant species from native to invasive, which in turn means that the small mammals that feed on native grass seeds decline, and along with them, the owls that prey on them.

“Humans are pretty much the biggest problem for owls around the world,” says Karla Bloem. The drive to develop land for agriculture, housing, and industry is destroying what few refuges remain for owls. And in some parts of the world, owls are still actively persecuted or hunted or captured and killed for their symbolism.