What’s that ‘who’ you hear on New Year’s?
For birds that mate for life, nightly calls are way of renewing bonds
New Year’s Eve revelers might hear a great horned owl hooting at midnight, but the large birds won’t be celebrating but rather calling their mates.
NEW Year’s Eve revelers at the midnight hour might hear a great horned owl hooting, “Who’s–awake, me-too.”
But the large bird, which stands 2 feet tall, won’t be celebrating with tipsy revelers tooting paper-coned horns and singing “Auld Lang Syne.” It will be calling to its mate.
The male owl initiates the call, a deep-throated whooo–AWHOHwhooo–whoo, which is answered by the female at some distance away. Her own call sounds like an echo of the male.
Great horned owls intone on winter nights because their annual mating season begins as early as Thanksgiving. The birds are monogamous and stay together for years, if not for life, so their winter duets generally are a way of renewing the mating bond and reestablishing nesting territory.
I know the deep-toned calls well — a pair of great horned owls have been calling from a pine tree outside my bedroom window. They often lull me to sleep after dark or wake me near the stroke of midnight. I’m sure to hear their resonate calls after the booming of fireworks and the blaring of car horns signaling the arrival of 2018. Unlike the owls, backyard songbirds such as American robins, northern cardinals and Carolina wrens won’t tune up their mating songs until February or March, although I’ve often heard robins singing in January.
By late January great horned owls could have eggs in a nest and could be feeding chicks by March, even before songbirds have finished or even begun nest-building. All the while, the owls will be hooting at midnight.
The owls never really bother with nest construction, anyway. Nor are they particular about where they nest. They’ll employ old nests of other birds like American crows and yellow-crowned night-herons. Last year’s squirrel nests work, too. Even tree hollows, building ledges and large nest boxes suit the owls.
When occupying a preowned nest or other suitable spot, the owls will line it with leaves, sticks, bark or other materials and perhaps cushion it with animal fur from a rabbit they’ve eaten for dinner.
Which reminds me: Think what a nutritious midnight meal great horned owls will enjoy as New Year’s revelers merely sip champagne and eat cake.