Northern Saw-whet Owl

 

Northern Saw-whet Owls are mottled brown birds with a whitish facial disk and white-spotted head. Their eyes are yellow. Juveniles are dark brown with creamy yellow breast and belly.

During daylight they roost in dense vegetation, typically just above eye level and near the trunk in evergreen trees. They breed in extensive forests across northern North America. They winter in dense forests across the central and southern U.S.

The Northern Saw-whet Owl may have been named for giving a call that sounds like a saw being sharpened on a whetting stone, but there is no consensus as to which of its several calls gave rise to the name.

The main prey items of the Northern Saw-whet Owl are mice, and especially deer mice. Saw-whets usually eat adult mice in pieces, however I have observed a Saw-whet swallow a mouse whole. If you look closely in forest where Northern Saw-whets are wintering you will find stashed meals.

The female Northern Saw-whet Owl does all of the incubation and brooding, while the male does the hunting. When the youngest nestling is about 18 days old, the female leaves the nest to roost elsewhere. The male continues bringing food, which the older nestlings may help feed to their younger siblings.

The female saw-whet keeps the nest very clean, but a mess starts to accumulate when she leaves. By the time the young owls leave the nest, 10 days to 2 weeks later, the nest cavity has a thick layer of feces, pellets, and rotting prey parts.

Migration in saw-whets has historically been poorly understood, because of their nocturnal, reclusive behavior.

In the 1990s researchers began Project Owlnet, a collaboration that now consists of more than 100 owl migration banding sites. Researchers use the too-too-too call to lure owls in to mist nets, and band thousands of saw-whets every fall.

Migrating Northern Saw-whet Owls can cross the Great Lakes or other large bodies of water. In October of 1999, one landed on a fishing vessel 70 miles from shore in the Atlantic Ocean near Montauk, New York.

The oldest Northern Saw-whet Owl on record was at least 9 years, 5 months old when it was captured and released by a Minnesota bird bander in 2007. It was originally banded in Ontario in 1999. Research from Cornell All About Birds