#northern saw-whet owl

[jadafitch]

Northern saw-whet for Superb Owl Sunday

[emmikay]

I would like to add the Northern Saw-Whet Owl! They're are the smallest species in North America. It's thought they're named the their high pitched calls. Mice are a primary part of their diets, and they've been observed eating half an adult mouse, and saving the rest to eat later.

I heard it's Superb Owl Sunday so I have prepared some superb owls for you.

The barn owl is the most widespread species of owl, living on every continent except Antarctica. Their faces are shaped like a disk to help their hearing, giving them some of the best hearing of any owl. They mostly hunt by sound.

Snowy owls are the largest arctic predatory birds, They are born with black feathers and get whiter as they age. Females usually have more dark feathers than males.

Eastern screech owls have a few feather variants that make them look like completely different species.

The southern white-faced owl can increase its metabolic rate during winter to compensate for the cold and lack of food. They lay their eggs in nests built and abandoned by other birds.

The great grey owl is the largest owl by length, but a lot of that is feathers and they're actually very light for their size. Their hearing is good enough to hear rodents burrowing through snow and they can break through hard-packed snow to catch prey.

Blakiston's fish owl is the largest owl by mass and eats mostly fish. Despite the name, they may be more closely related to eagle owls than fish owls.

The elf owl is the smallest owl species, barely larger than a sparrow. They hunt bugs and play dead when caught. They like to live in holes in saguaro cacti.

Burrowing owls live in underground burrows. While they can dig, they mostly take over burrows from other animals. Farmers killing prairie dogs has severely reduced burrowing owl populations. They decorate their burrows with feces to attract bugs to eat.

The barking owl is called that because

Its nice to have a day to appreciate superb owls. Feel free to spread the love by reblogging with some more owl facts.

[shittybirdart]

northern saw-whet owl

[tinylongwing]

For @aurorawest, a Northern Saw-Whet Owl. I just love the color patterns on the juveniles so that's what I went with here! And I went a little experimental with the cedar tips in the foreground but I kind of love the contrast they bring. Thanks for donating to the Waymakers challenge!

Time is running out to get your donations in and help support the rights of immigrant kids in the US! Ends Sept. 30. Donate to the challenge at https://runsignup.com/tinylongwing and I will draw you a bird, just let me know what species you want to see!

[antiqueanimals]

Virginia Wildlife; vol. 39, no. 2. February, 1978. Illustration by John W. Taylor.

Internet Archive

[arintheman]

Did I just create 6 oc's? Uhhhh yeah I did.

I recently read all of the Guardians of Ga'Hoole books and of course it reignited my hyper-fixation from middle school. I know they look kinda copy-paste-y, but for the sake of simplicity I just sketched out a base that I used for all of them. (They're all owls, what do you want from me?) All 6 started out in my sketchbook.

Let me introduce you to Benter, Orion, Solan, Dymas, Maple, and Ansel! All 6 are up on my artfight (I've nearly quadrupled the number of characters I have there now lol) along with some lore!

(Psst. If you would like me to design an owl for you, message me! - I will likely only do three)

[guaca-and-her-sonder]

Finally made myself a Ga'hoole oc (I just turned my dnd owlin into a normal owl)

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Northern Saw-Whet Owl

MLORENZ/SHUTTERSTOCK

[terebelli]

Jennil Modar 📸

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Smithsonian Magazine:

The birds weigh about as much as a bar of soap.

That’s how Melissa Boyle Acuti describes the northern saw-whet owl, the smallest owl species found in Maryland and one of the smallest in North America. They’re hardly bigger than a fist with a ping pong ball on top, she adds.

During the fall in Edgewater, Maryland, a small group of volunteers helps catch and band these little owls from sunset to midnight. They’re participating in Project Owlnet, an initiative that seeks to learn more about these birds and their migration and that supports an ever-expanding network of migrant owl banding stations.

Boyle Acuti is the banding station manager for Project Owlnet’s site at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) in Edgewater. She leads the participants through the project’s processes.

The group uses an audio lure to entice the birds, capturing them in mist nets to bring back to the banding station. Once there, they place aluminum bands on the birds—“friendship bracelets for science,” as they’re called within the project. Project participants also measure the owls’ bills, wings and tails.

They use a blacklight to look at the underside of the owls’ wings and see their molt pattern, which helps determine their ages, a difficult task. Old feathers don’t glow as brightly under the light because the pigment has faded, while new feathers have a brighter glow, Boyle Acuti says.

“They nest and summer up in these boreal forests in Canada,” she says. “Those areas, people can’t get to very easily. … So that’s why the fall migration studies are really important to know what’s happening with the population of owls.”

For Christmas bird counts, the owls may be found down in their southern range, possibly showing up at stations in Georgia, Alabama and Oklahoma. “They go pretty far south in small numbers,” she says. “The more that we do with Project Owlnet, the more we learn about their migrations.”

Saw-whet captures have varied widely from year to year at SERC, which became a Project Owlnet banding site in 2017. That year, the team captured eight birds, and the next year, they captured 54. Then in 2019, it was six; the year after, it was 29. And then eight in 2021, 26 in 2022, nine in 2023 and ten in 2024. Notably, one of the birds banded at SERC and identified as a recently hatched owl in 2022 was recaptured nearly 600 miles away in Quebec on October 14, 2024.

Many factors may affect the owl population, Boyle Acuti notes: “You hear about the wildfires in Canada—they’ve been in the news. Even climate change, that could be causing the southern species to move more northerly. The tree species compositions, if those change, that could impact where the owls are nesting and the prey. There’s a lot we don’t know, and that’s why we study them. In order to see trends, you have to have long-term data sets.”

[meadowreveries]

Saw-whet owl is on its way to its new home

[pyjamacryptid]

I can’t share any WIPs I’m working on atm but I can share this half-hour sketch I did of a northern saw-whet owl!

I found out about the existence of this little guy through a uquiz (link below) and immediately fell in love with it. IT IS SO SMALL AND ITS EYES LOOK LIKE DOLL EYES AND I AM OBSESSED WITH IT. I LOVE IT!!! IT LOOKS LIKE THE FLOOSHED EMOTE.

uquiz: Which Animal Is Your Familiar? (North America Edition)

[arthistoryanimalia]

For #WatercolorWednesday + #NationalMothWeek:

Sallie Ellington Middleton (USA, 1926-2009) Owl in the Apple Tree, c.1963 (with 2 bonus moths!) Watercolor on paper, 21 3/4 x 17 5/8 in Gibbes Museum 1967.016

🆔 Cecropia Moth (Hyalophora cecropia), Luna Moth (Actias luna), Northern Saw-Whet Owl (Aegolius acadicus)

"To create her fantastic natural scenes she often acquired and actually lived with the animals or preserved specimens. She would spend dozens of hours sitting before the little bit of landscape which embraced those animals, scrutinizing every aspect, and then would patiently capture in her own unique style."

[proton-wobbler]

Battle Royale

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEE (F-1)

These birds of prey don't really play nice with others, so we had to separate them out into their own battle.

[thetowerreversed]

day 3 & 4 recap / day 5 goals of naclyoho

Recap:

Spent time with friends and partner past two days, so cleaning was put on pause. But here's a northern saw-whet owl I got to see yesterday!! Look how SMOL SHE IS!!!

Same goals for today, day 5, sorry for the copy paste!

Goals:

Put away Halloween decorations 🎃

Start on the bathroom as the next clean out project! Bag up items we don't use, throw away trash

Motivation:

Seasonal shift!! Halloween vibes are movin out, time for soft and cozy and wintery. And idk but cleaning the bathroom has always been my favorite to clean so...I'll have fun with it.

[pomegranighte]

Illustrations by George Gorgas White