Uncovering Hooters: Barred Owls Quiz

Answer: The vertical stripes on their front

Barred owls have vertical lines that break up a paler front, and tiny white dapples across their dark brown back. Their scientific name is Strix varia, "varia" in reference to the fairly wide range of patterns possible on their back and chest, as well as the amount of feathers on their extremities. At least two subspecies have been split off as entirely separate species: the fulvous and cinereous owls (their names mean "reddish" and "ash-colored" respectively).

Barn and barred owls share much of their American range, so the confusion is not for nothing. The name may also dismay any vexillologists, for whom bars are horizontal and stripes are vertical. Wing bars are an extremely common field mark, differentiating some birds from closely similar species, but they aren't prominent in barred owls.

Answer: Strictly nocturnal (hunt at night)

Whereas owls with orange or yellow eyes tend to hunt at dawn, dusk, or even in daylight, barred owls are among the most strictly nocturnal of owl species. (Of course, that doesn't mean an owl can't get woken up from a nap and poke its head out during the day, but hunting is highly unusual.) Guides and illustrations tell me the eyes are a dark brown, but to me they seem to look pitch black.

Noting the eye color of an owl can narrow down your options quickly. I am once again saddened to tell you that the one other widespread North American owl with black eyes is the barn owl, so their eye color will do little to help verbal confusion. The good news: barn owls are pale, and their fronts will have either black speckles or be unmarked. A barred owl will always have those prominent bars.

Answer: Who cooks for you, who cooks for you all?

As any grade schooler knows, the sillier the mnemonic, the easier it is to remember. I'm not sure why barred owls want to know so much about our division of labor, but these little vocal patterns make memorizing bird calls so much simpler. Compared to the great horned owl, the most owly-sounding owl, the barred owl's call is more complex, variable, and has a reedier timbre to it.

They might also make monkey-like calls to each or to scare away unwanted trespassers, like, uh, you. Believe me, on a dark trail at night, they can do an excellent job at scaring you.

Answer: Great horned owl

If you're out owling, you'll routinely find great horned owls perched on the top of the tallest pine trees. They are the lords of the moonlit forest, and even barred owls cower before them. You'll usually find barred owls somewhere in the middle of the canopy, to protect themselves from these predators. Very small owls, like the saw-whet and boreal owls, are famously hard to spot, partly because they roost close to the trunks of thick trees.

I haven't been able to write a question about the barred owl's diet because I haven't found something that they won't try to eat. Yes, they prefer mice, squirrels, and rabbits, but they'll also eat other birds lizards and snakes, bats, weasels, crawdads, and fish. Rarely, they can take opossum, raccoons, skunk, and even other raptors. Both small hawks and other owls are occasionally taken.

Answer: Outcompeting of local birds

The range of barred owls, America's second most common owl after the great horned owl, has only recently expanded westward into that of the spotted owl. Spotted owls are very similar to barred owls - bonus points if you noticed that the photo is actually a spotted, not a barred, owl. Even the owls get confused sometimes, and hybrids have been found. But the bigger danger than cross-breeding is that spotted owls are meeker than the territorial barred owls, which has put pressure on this already vulnerable species.

While no plan has been finalized at time of writing, the FWS has pushed to allow people to cull the barred owls. Conservation comes at a cost, and in this case, we must choose between intervention or possible extinction. Both have ethical disadvantages. There is an argument to be made that it's not our place to dictate which of two species ought to dominate, but it's also true that human logging attracted barred owls to the region in the first place. Do we have a responsibility to undo our actions, or a responsibility to leave well enough alone?

Answer: B

The answer is B, for barred owl! Choice A is that pesky barn owl again - they too have black eyes, but their pale appearance and characteristic, pronounced beak make them stand out in a crowd. The cutie in spot D is a saw-whet owl, which are much smaller.

In my neck of the woods, short-eared owls are the closest lookalike. As you can tell by the photo, short-eareds, unlike their long-eared cousins, may have not have visible head tufts at all. The dead giveaway that they are not barred owls is their golden eyes.

Answer: Crows

Crows are the mob bosses, particularly when it comes to raptors. In fact, Audubon's online guide lists barred owls as "About the size of a Crow" - though this even match-up is the exception and not the rule. Smaller birds, such as chickadees, are famous mobbers, and other birds know to respond to chickadees, either by joining the mob or fleeing at their tip-off. Both chickadees and crows are intelligent, gregarious, widespread, and highly vocal birds, and smart birdwatchers listen up for their commotion down the trail. It pays to be on the mob's good side.

It's surprising that even one tiny bird can shoo off a huge predator. Keep in mind that barred owls are ambush predators. There isn't too much to fear from an owl you can see coming all the way across a field, especially if you've got any way of hurting it. An owl chased by a chickadee must feel like the Karate Kid trying to catch a fly with chopsticks.

Answer: regurgitated.

Calling owls "cats with wings" (if pigeons are "rats with wings") is apt in lots of ways. For one, they both produce hairballs! O.K., owl pellets include lots of other matter - the closer you inspect any owl pellet picture, the worse it gets - but on first impression they kind of look like a teddy bear's ripped out stuffing. Pellets are expelled from the bird's beak, rather than the, uh, other end.

With skill that I do not posses, it's possible to match the owl to its leavings. Those of barred owls are lighter gray than the soot-colored barn owls. You can mail-order educational kits to receive your very own pile of owl regurgitations, if you wish to dissect them and inspect last month's dinner. (I'll stick to tracking owls by ear, thanks.)

Answer: Sedentary, controlling small territories for years

Barred owls are sedentary, which in this context refers to their migrations, not their exercise habits. Barred owls don't migrate or travel far. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology banded and relocated 158 owls, and found every single one of them less than 6 miles from where they were before. Contrast that with - what else? - barn owls, which have been found with food in their bellies from over 300 miles away!

Barred owls are known to "borrow" old nests or drays from other animals, especially crows, squirrels, and red-tailed hawks. They only need the nests for the breeding season, so in some places, between breeding seasons, the owls might alternate the exact same nesting location with red-shouldered hawks. Apparently, the owls are really bad houseguests - the owls tear the nests, abandon them, and leave them to the hawks to fix!

Answer: Avoiding eye contact

It's tricky to read owls - as the wrong answers suggest, two exactly opposite responses can both indicate stress! Puffing out its feathers, hunching its back, or fanning its wings behind its head in imitation of a frilled lizard, all make the owl appear larger, standard intimidation stuff. Another stress response is for owls to freeze in place, especially if they are watching you. The good news is that common sense prevails with eye contact. If an owl is ignoring you, it's probably content!

The most important goal when observing an owl is never to flush it - that is, prompt it to fly out of its hiding spot. As mentioned, owls are easily mobbed, and a flushed owl sticks out like pink at a funeral. You could potentially drive the owl to leave the area altogether.

In writing this quiz, I was sad to discover how easy it is to find photos and "action shots" of obviously stressed owls. I hope the culprits were simply unaware of their bad actions, and didn't flush them deliberately. Please don't bother a real animal for the sake of having a pretty one on your wall.