It is hard not to be excited about a species also known as the “Phantom of the North”.
This air of mystery is also present in the scientific name Strix nebulosa (nebulosa means misty, cloudy, dark).
It is a large owl, though most of it is air and feathers (see here for an illustration) – despite a length of about 70 cm (the longest of all owl species), it only weighs about 1.1 kg.
In marked contrast to some other species, they seem to be less interested in weeding out the weakest. One paper observed “Twice we observed the adult owls favor the weakest of the fledglings. At one site where three young had left their nest, one young was blind in one eye, uncoordinated, and gurgled instead of hissed. The female stayed nearest to the blind owlet and the male fed it more frequently than the others. In another case, one of two fledglings was temporarily injured in handling and the female stayed with that young for several days until it could fly again”.
The paper later picks up the same point again: “Our observations suggest that adult great gray owls sometimes favor the smaller or weaker of their offspring. … These observations are contrary to the theory that the weakest are not attended in many raptors if resources are scarce”.
The owl’s eyes are fixed in place, so they need to move their head instead when looking at a specific object (source). Fortunately, they are quite good at that – they can turn their neck by 270 degrees thanks to having 14 rather than the usual 7 bones in their neck (for humans, this value is between 70 and 90 degrees).
Researchers who are not too impressed with the mysterious qualities of this owl instead write papers with inspiring titles such as “A super SDM (species distribution model) ‘in the cloud’ for better habitat-association inference with a ‘big data’ application of the Great Gray Owl for Alaska”.
At the other end of the spectrum, there are websites such as this one in which the Great Grey Owl symbolizes pretty much everything (in rather bad English): “The Great Grey Owl will do it’s due diligence to keep harmful people away from you”. Complete with a request for donations to Quornesha Has, a “Shaman, Writer, Healer, And Teacher with incredible prophetic/healing gifts.”
While the Great Grey Owl is listed as Least Concern and Cornell notes an increasing population, fairly large numbers die in collisions with vehicles in irruption years. One study examined the stomachs of 265 owls, all victims of vehicle collisions in Minnesota in the winter of 2004-2005.
One paper on Great Grey Owls presents a bit of a puzzle, though that is not related to the content of the paper. Titled “Diversity of great gray owl nest sites and nesting habitats in California”, the abstract ends with the sentence “This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA”. However, rather than allowing the free download of the paper, the Wiley site only offers several paid options starting from 16 USD. Perhaps not too surprising for a country in which the president sells perfume, but still …
Here is a video of a Great Grey Owl in the snow, not doing much.
All photos taken near Wuerqihan, Inner Mongolia, China in December 2024.
Leave a Comment