Great Horned Owls: Majesty on the East End

Quogue Wildlife Refuge is Hooter’s fourth home, and his last.

His enclosure is cleaned daily, he gets unconditional love and 100 grams of frozen rats per day. He came from Queens College Nature Center, which closed in 2004, and was imprinted on people at an early age.

As a healthy fledgling with fluffy feathers, the great horned owl was just learning to fly when a human saw him hopping around on the ground and took him home somewhere in the Midwest.

“If it’s bleeding or looks very lethargic and there are flies around it, then you can call wildlife rehabilitation,” says Cara Fernandes, the Quogue Wildlife Refuge program director. Otherwise, it’s best to leave owlets alone. Most likely, their parents are not very far away.

Hooter was illegally raised as a pet and surrendered or was confiscated when he was 5 years old. Dependent on humans for so long, he can’t hunt for food and is a permanent resident in Quogue, helping wildlife rehabilitators educate the public on the apex predator in their backyards.

“He’s trained to step onto a leather glove,” Fernandes said. A leash is attached to a jess around the owl’s ankle to prevent him from flying away. In the wild, great horned owls can live up to 28 years, but in captivity, they can live up to 50.

Hooter is comfortable around people, curious, active and very vocal. “He does a lot of talking,” Fernandes says. “He’ll talk to other great horned owls in the area.”

Males have a lower pitch, and the females have a higher pitch. Females are also 10 to 20 percent larger than the male.

The Quogue Wildlife Refuge offers full moon night hikes with a naturalist where the group might hear, or even see, a great horned owl in the wild, perhaps perching in a white pine. The next hike is on Tuesday, November 8, and guests can reserve their spot at quoguewildliferefuge.org.

Birding extraordinaire Joe Guinta, founder of Happy Warblers, happywarblers.com, also offers hikes, where he calls owls using an app on his phone, either through the Sibley or Peterson applications. His next owl walk is on Friday, November 25, in Bridgehampton, and sign-up is through the South Fork Natural History Museum, available at sofo.org.

Around Labor Day, Guinta got a call from a homeowner in Amagansett who heard a great horned owl at 2 a.m. on her roof, calling for a mate. “It’s a wonderful sound,” Guinta says. “They’re getting ready for next winter, starting their breeding season.”

Great horned owls nest earlier in the year than any other bird, and their calls will pick up as the season continues. They mate for life and do not migrate. By January, females lay one to four eggs, which hatch two days apart after 35 days.

Unlike ospreys or eagles, great horned owls do not build nests. Rather, they steal them. They are ruthless opportunists known to knock bald eagles clear out of their nests. They don’t need a fancy bald eagle nest either. They’ve been known to recycle squirrel nests.

When a great horned owl hoots, the white patch of plumage on its throat expands, the better to be seen in the dusk or dawn hours.

The portal between light and dark is when the great horned owl awakens. It is because of its familiarity with the darkness that the bird has cultivated an air of mystery and has been revered and even feared by cultures throughout history.

Bubo virginianus, the scientific name for the great horned owl, are carnivores. The large owls sit in a tree, look, and listen for prey. Ever so quietly, they swoop down on a rodent, rabbit, squirrel, bat or bird. The ends of their feathers are so soft, their flight is silent.

Their “horns” are actually feather tufts, officially called plumicorns and are not ears at all. Their asymmetrical ears sit lower and enable them to hunt by sound on moonless nights. Their enormous tubular eyes are set far apart in their large, round head, which can turn 270 degrees.

They grip their prey with strong talons and usually rip its entire head off. They don’t kill with their beaks; they kill with their feet. Two claws bend forward and two bend back for a mega lock.

Photographing the great horned owl requires patience and stillness. They are highly sensitive to sound and movement and prefer to be hidden in the dark canopy of the forest, says noted acupuncturist and photographer Dr. Maria Bowling. In addition, the colors and textures of their feathers mirror the surfaces and shades of the woodland.

“The two juveniles that I photographed were curious and willing to come out on a tree limb and dance,” Bowling says. “Making eye contact with them feels like connecting to something ancient.”

When looking for an owl in the wild, let the crows do the work for you. Crows are the bane of a great horned owl’s existence and will outsmart the “wise” owls, to the point of bullying. Loud squawks alert others to the owl. It’s a great place to start looking.

During the daytime, owls will perch and roost on top of a tree, usually a pine, close to the trunk. When on a trail, keep your eyes out for whitewash, or feces, and thumb-sized pellets. Great horned owls will swallow mice whole and then regurgitate a neat package of bones and fur and hurl it onto the ground, giving birders a clue to look up.

Meep has been residing at the Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Rescue Center in Hampton Bays for 13 years, ever since the great horned owl fell out of her nest in Southold at only 2 days old. She broke both her wings and fractured her pelvis.

“It took a very long time for her to be rehabilitated, hence the reason she couldn’t be released,” says volunteer Jane Gill, who has been with the wildlife center for 12 years. “She is fully flighted now but wouldn’t have known what to do in the wild had she been released.”

Working with Meep has been life-changing for the real estate agent. Like, Hooter, Meep will always be a wild bird and her instincts are to protect herself. “She’s independent but definitely enjoys human contact, and that’s probably because she’s had that since she came to the center,” Gill says.

“When I was going through my cancer treatment in 2018, I spent a lot of time taking Meep for walks,” she says. “I had been given two years to live, and I found I had an extraordinary awakening being with her that I truly believe was a very big part of my healing.”

Great horned owls represent courage, strength and beauty. Often, they have ties to acting fearlessly or with confidence. “It’s the old saying ‘be here now,’” she says.

“When I started taking those walks with her, I had an epiphany and realized animals don’t think about what they had for breakfast or what they’re going to do tomorrow. They are completely in the moment,” she says. “And when you are in that moment, fear, at least for me, seems to dissipate.”

Gill is cancer free and continues to take walks with Meep.

If you’re interested in rescuing or caring for injured wildlife, the center is always looking for volunteers. Go to wildliferescuecenter.org to find out more.