Who cooks for you? This is the call you can hear on a warm night in Florida, and it is the call of one of our most beautiful owls, the Barred Owl. If you ever have the rare opportunity to spot one of these owls, you will quickly see why they are so adorable, and they are one of our most favorite raptors.
Barred Owls are a medium to large size owl. The Barred owl's height is around 17"-25". They have a wing span of 38"-50". Their weight is around 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 lbs. Even though some can be around the same size as a Great-Horned owl, barred owls weigh much less. Barred owls have a large round head with no ear tufts on their head. They have yellow beaks and yellow legs and feet. They have a whitish-brown facial disk with dark brown/chocolate brown trim. The outline of the facial disk is almost shaped like a heart or butterfly. They have a white neck and chest with brown streaking which looks like a bar pattern. Thus, the name "Barred Owl." The also have wide brown and white bar patterns on their tail. Males and females look alike in plumage and sometimes the female can be larger. Immature owls look similar to the adults. The Barred Owls natural enemy is the Great-Horned owl.
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Watch A Movie Clip Of A Barred Owl
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Barred Owls generally travel no more than a few miles from where they were born. They can survive for around 10 years in the wild and around 20-25 years in captivity. Barred owls mate for life and they often reuse the same nest every year. Barred owls prefer swamps, wetlands and heavily wooded areas as well as open fields for living, hunting and raising their young owlets. As observed with Great-horned owls, they prefer mature evergreens as a suitable home and a place to roost during the day to sleep and a place to hunt from without being noticed at night.
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View Photo Of A Barred Owl Close Up
View Photo Of A Barred Owl Sunning
View Photo Of A Barred Owl Hunting At Night
View Photo Of A Barred Owl Hunting In The Early Morning
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Like most species of owls, Barred owls hunt at night but you can observe them in the morning, afternoon or early evening as well. We have observed Great-horned owls and Barred owls flying, hunting, preening their feathers, feeding their young and hooting to each other during other parts of the day besides late at night. The Barred owls signature call is "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?" They are a very vocal owl and can be very loud. You can hear their calls during the day time as well as night. They can be very loud when communicating to each other even if it's a small group of 4-6 owls in the same area.
Barred owls sit on their favorite perch which can even be a bare or dead branch. They look from side to side with those big and beautiful dark brown eyes. Their excellent hearing and eye sight can detect the slightest movement of a rodent, rabbit, squirrel, chipmunk, snake, lizard, frog and even an insect. Barred owls are also known to eat fish and aquatic frogs. We have a pair of Barred owls that perch near small and large ponds and look for food and fish. They also communicate to each other and to other Barred owls in the area. They will even wade in water to catch fish and aquatic frogs and crayfish. Barred owls are also attracted to campfires and lights and they will use this as an advantage for perching and hunting.
The breeding season for Barred owls may last from February to August depending on the region. Barred owls build nests in cavities in deciduous trees or they use open stick nest made by squirrels, hawks or crows. They also use nest boxes that are built for Barred owls. The female lays 1-3 white eggs. Incubation takes 28-33 days. The male brings food to the female while she is on the nest. The owlets are born helpless and with their eyes closed. They are covered with white fluffy down feathers.
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Listen To The Sounds Of A Barred Owl (MP3 Format - :05 - 215KB)
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Florida has plenty of Spanish moss to line the tree cavity nests or open stick nests to help keep the baby owlets warm and dry. Once the owlet(s) leave the nest, in about 4 weeks, and step out onto the nearby branches, they are not able to fly and they use their beaks and talons to climb to branches and to help them sit on the branch. The Spanish moss that is hanging from the branches keeps them warm and camoflagued as they grown into adults. They enjoy sleeping close to large tree trunks during the day. Parents care for their young owlets for at least 4 months after they have fledged the nest. Once the owlets are the same size as their parents and are fully fledged, the only difference we can see between the parents and the young owls is that they had a little bit more white on their neck and chest and they still had traces of down feathers still. The young owls tend to disperse very short distances from where they were born and raised. Usually, less than 5 miles before settling.
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View Photo Of A Barred Owl Sitting On Spanish Moss
View Photo Of A Barred Owl Close Up
View Photo Of A Baby Barred Owl
View Photo Of Barred Owl In Lowry Park Zoo's Education Program
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For the past couple of weeks we have heard Barred Owls from Midnight to 8:00 a.m. around our home. One morning I woke up and heard 1 Barred Owl hooting to the right of me in the woods and talking to another one directly in the woods towards the back. They were talking after the sunrise. But mostly we hear them talking from Midnight to 4:00 a.m. They like to sit in the trees in the Nature Preserve and talk to each other by our large back pond. Recently, we had found an area where a Chuck Will's Widow is talking all night as well as laying on the ground in some brush near some trees. This area is an area where the Barred Owls hoot to each other as well. Well, after we found the Chuck Will's Widow, we heard several Barred Owls hooting to each other. We ran over by he back pond to listen to them. It was so loud that we couldn't hear each other talk.
They were hooting the typical "Who Cooks for You" as well as the "Caterwauling" as Naturalists and Biologists call it. We think there are 3-4 of them talking to each other.....at least. We hope that there are 2 pairs of Barred Owls and that they successfully breed and keep living in our area which is the back of Brooker Creek Nature Preserve. Now, two of them are a pair who had babies this past year in 2006. I can't see their offspring leaving this area to live somewhere else because this area is perfect for Barred Owls. We have the very tall old trees, PIne trees, snags, healthy ponds, open fields, tall grasses, so many mammals, wading birds, raptors, soft Spanish Moss which is perfect to line tree cavities and nests that are in tress. I have read some information on-line where Barred Owls are very family oriented for a long time after their young have fledged the nest. We are wondering if the young owlets from this past season are still hanging around and keeping their territory strong with their parents. We are wondering if the pair are not only hooting the very loud calls to each other but if they are also talking to their owlets from last year. I know that people have documented and have taken pictures of Barred Owls as they are coming into Brooker Creek Nature Preserve which is way on the other side of us. We are guessing that these Barred Owl are not related to ours. Barred Owls keep their nest in the same area for years.
We think that the Barred Owl pair are going to have baby owlets again right by Eastlake Road. We spotted either the male or female right down the street. He or she was hooting and looking in that direction several times. We followed the Barred Owl as he or she came from the nesting area to in the middle where we live. We followed the owl as it flew over us stopping from roof top to roof top and looking down on the ground for a critter to scamper by. The owl finally flew by the large pond in the back where we heard them all talking the other day. Obviously, this is a very familiar and comfortable area to them and an area where the male and female are communicating to each other. They are also either talking to their owlets from last year and trying to establish a family territory or they are talking to another Barred Owl pair. I'm sure they also find plenty of treats to eat in this healthy area of woods, ponds, fields and swamps.
