We have two or three kinds of owls on the mountain. I have heard the barred owl and the screech owl, and possibly the great horned owl. Until recently we have seen only one of the larger owls, and then only a fleeting glimpse as it flew across the road and it was illuminated by our headlights*. And then over the last couple of weeks I have seen screech owls three times. Unfortunately, on two of those occasions they were dead.
Here is one I found lying along Fouche Gap Road last Tuesday, Dec. 17. I am not positive of the identification, but based on what I have read, it’s the only native Georgia owl that’s as small as this one was. Both were lying on their backs and I didn’t turn them over to get a better look. The size of this one was consistent with the eight inches given by several sites, although it might have been slightly smaller than that.
Dead owl, Fouche Gap Road
I made the shot with my iPhone. It’s overexposed, and all the detail in the lighter areas was completely blown out.
The first one I saw was also lying along Fouche Gap Road on the opposite side of the mountain. Their bodies were apparently scavenged quite quickly, so I assume both of them had been hit by cars the previous night.
It bothers me to see any animal that has been hit by a car, but these exquisite little owls were really sad.
The third screech owl was alive. I saw it some time between the two dead owls. I was taking the dogs on their last walk of the night. We were crossing the leach field that’s on the downhill side of the house. It’s surrounded by woods. Zeke had stopped and was watching something intently. It was so dark that all I could see was a vague outline that appeared to have some lighter spots. I assumed that it was Chloe, although I have never seen her in that location. When I turned on my flashlight I realized it was a bird.
Zeke was staring at it from about six feet away. The owl was staring back. I was afraid Zeke was going to charge it, so I pulled him back. At that point the bird flew away into the woods.
It was an odd confrontation. I wonder why the owl didn’t fly immediately. Maybe it had caught some small animal and didn’t want to leave it.
* Which reminds me of another time I saw an owl. It was in 1977. I was living at Lake Tahoe, and Leah’s brother Dan rode his motorcycle out to visit. We took our bikes on a long loop up to Washington and across to North Dakota. We had ridden into the night and pulled over some place in North Dakota to check a map or something. When we pulled back out onto the two-lane highway we were on, a huge white owl appeared just ahead and above my motorcycle, just at the edge of the headlight beam. It accelerated with me for a while and then eventually flew away. It was one of the eeriest and coolest things I have ever seen on the road.
What an experience. Wonder if it was a snowy owl. They’re quite large.
Recently one has been spotted at the tip of Virginia’s Eastern Shore and another in the upper Outer Banks of North Carolina. Hope to see one.
So sad to see those beautiful owls dead on the ground. It’s always a heartbreak. On our recent trip to southern California to see my mom, I saw way too many dead raptors on the side of the road. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many before.
Your white night owl experience reminded me of one that Roger and I had driving late one night on the Olympic Peninsula. Beautiful white owl flew right in front of our car.
Given their size, your dead owls are either Eastern Screech-owls or Northern Saw-whet Owls. From your image, it’s difficult to tell because of the “belly” shot, but the Screech-owls are far more common than the Saw-whets. If you find another ( I certainly hope you don’t), try to determine if the victim has ear tufts; Screech-owls have small ear tufts, whereas Saw-whets do not.
Your nighttime owl story is really neat! I can just imagine the experience. It was probably a Snowy Owl.
We’re enjoying an unprecedented eruption of Snowy Owls from the Arctic this year. There are two overwintering at the coastal Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge just north of Atlantic City, New Jersey, and the place is “hopping” with birders. Kali and I will try to make it down over the holidays too, because a Snowy Owl would be a life-lister for us. But, there are Snowy Owls inland, too, even in our own Pennsylvania county.
Minnie — It was certainly white, but I couldn’t have made a close observation while riding the bike, and probably couldn’t have told anyway at that time.
Robin Andrea — This is the first time I have seen any birds hit by cars on the mountain. We see hawks a lot down at the bottom of the mountain, and they sometimes swoop across the road right in front of the car. So far we have missed them.
Scott — Unfortunately I didn’t turn either of the birds over. There might be a small hint of an ear tuft on the dead owl’s left side, but it’s hard to tell with all the leaf litter. I know for sure that we have screech owls, because I have heard them fairly often. I didn’t know what they were until I found the web site I linked to in the body of the post.