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February 6, 2009
More about Screech Owls
On my last post on Screech Owls, I wrote that "Screech Owls
come in two basic colors, red and gray. Although the term “phase” is
used to describe these two colors, the owls do not change from one
phase to the other.
A reddish-brown screech owl is always reddish
brown, and a grayish-brown Screech Owl always remains grayish brown."
That drew the following question from a friend of this blog: "Do Screech Owls always pick mates of
their own color phase? And if two
different color-phased owls mate, what color are the offspring? This is not a riddle—it’s a
real question."
The answers are: Red-phased and gray-phased Screech Owls can and do mate. My first pair of Screech Owl neighbors, in 2005, were a red-phased male and a gray-phased female.
Because I had not installed a camera in the nesting box, I do not know if any of the owlets survived, let alone their coloration. But from what I understand, the two gray-phased owls of two years ago had both red-phased and gray-phased offspring. The coloration seems random.
Females are typically larger than males, and two-thirds of all Eastern Screech Owls are typically gray. More on Eastern Screech Owls here.
Western Screech Owls are only gray-phase, and have black bills. More on Western Screech Owls here.
Note: Unless otherwise noted, all solid Screech Owl photos were taken by Jerry Barrack. Mediocre or lousy shots are likely mine.
Questions of comments on Screech Owls. E-mail me here.
4 comments
-
That’s awesome, Helene. What town/state do you live in?
Jim -
Our backyard family of red screech owls gave me a wounderful display of introducing themselves of few nights ago. Mother screech owl and her 3 little ones flew and played around us for quite some time.
They landed a foot from me on the lower limb of the nearby tree, chequing us over. They took turns landing on the grass and the garbage dumpster that was right behind my husband in the open driveway. It was quite an amazing show.
I need to mention that we witnessed the little ones leaving the nesting box about 12 days earlier. They were just learning to fly. -
Interesting research, Jim. Thanks for sharing. We also had a red and a grey in the yard one year. Knowing that two grey owls can have a red one makes me think that the “red phase” is a recessive gene. Not really random. More like when two brown eyed parents have a blue eyed baby, it is explained with the recessive blue eyed gene.
-
Excellent info, Jim! Thanks
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4 comments
Jim Wright
That’s awesome, Helene. What town/state do you live in?
Jim
Helene Demers
Our backyard family of red screech owls gave me a wounderful display of introducing themselves of few nights ago. Mother screech owl and her 3 little ones flew and played around us for quite some time.
They landed a foot from me on the lower limb of the nearby tree, chequing us over. They took turns landing on the grass and the garbage dumpster that was right behind my husband in the open driveway. It was quite an amazing show.
I need to mention that we witnessed the little ones leaving the nesting box about 12 days earlier. They were just learning to fly.
Diana
Interesting research, Jim. Thanks for sharing. We also had a red and a grey in the yard one year. Knowing that two grey owls can have a red one makes me think that the “red phase” is a recessive gene. Not really random. More like when two brown eyed parents have a blue eyed baby, it is explained with the recessive blue eyed gene.
Tom Burr
Excellent info, Jim! Thanks