Creatures of The Night

By Ellie Brauner

Table of Contents

Chapter1……………………What Owls Eat

Chapter2……………………What Owls Look Like

Chapter3……………………Where Owls Live

Chapter4……………………What Owls Do

Chapter5……………………Other Interesting Facts

What Owls Eat

When owls are hunting they watch for sudden movements. Owls can eat skunks, reptiles, rabbits, fish, other owls, gophers, insects, ducks, frogs, and snakes. Their favorite meal is the flying squirrel. If possible owls swallow their food whole. If their meal is big they rip off chunks of it. Their food passes down from their stomach. After they eat they make owl pellets. When baby owls are already flying, their hunting skills are weak. At first owls are too small to swallow their prey whole, but they can eat chopped meat.

What Owls Look Like

Owls have flat faces. They also have a round disk shaped head. The disk shaped head aids the owl’s vision. Owls have big eyes that face forward their eyes are on top of their beaks. They have white feathers around their eyes to help see and hunt. Owl’s beaks are sharp and curved. Some owls’ beaks are yellow. Their feathers on their heads are called ear tuffs. Owls can have brown, grey, black, or white feathers. Some owls undersides are white like the Barn Owl. Owls can camouflage this helps them when danger is around because they stay hidden and predators can’t see them. When a mother great grey owl is seen by a hawk she puffs up to look bigger.

Where Owls Live

Owls can be found all around the world, except Antarctica. They can live in deserts, forests, or the artic tundra. Many owls live in the Wood Land. They need a lot of forest to live in and to hunt in. Some owls live in the dessert floor, other owls’ nest in cactuses like the screech owl. Owls nest in different spots. Owls like to live in human made places. Some owls make their nests in barns like the barn owl. Other owls live in special forests. Some owls aren’t very good at building nests so they steal other owl’s nests. Burrowing owls often build their nests in empty prairie dog holes. Burrowing owls live on the open grasslands of North, Central, and South America. A Spotted Owl can’t live in any other forest expect special forests because of two reasons:1. Big trees can provide cover for most of the animals.2. The Spotted Owl eats and lives in only the growth forests. The Spotted Owl roosts on limbs 100 feet in the air.

What Owls Do

The barn owl can deliver mail. Snowy owls can also deliver mail. Sometimes the great horned owl stops from perch to perch and hoots loudly. Owlets stay in their nest for several weeks they leave their nest in the Fall. Mommy owls can have 4 or 5 young. Some owls don’t share their nest. The burrowing owl does. The elf owl shares with saw - wheat owl. The elf owl is the smallest owl in the world. Female owls have extra high hoots. Male owls have low hoots. Some owls wake you up at night like the screech owl.

Other Interesting Facts

The feathers of the owl’s coat match their surroundings. Owl’s prey can separate their feather strands. Each year less baby owls make it to their adult stage. Barn owls hear better then they see. Owls aren’t mammals. They can have up to 2-inch talons. Their ears and eyes help them hunt at night. North American people aren’t aloud to harm owls. An owls` face helps to find where sounds are. There are digestive juices in an owls` stomach. A group of owls is called a parliament.