Eastern Screech Owl - Feeding Habits

Feeding Habits

Like most predators, Eastern Screech-Owls are opportunistic hunters. They hunt from dusk to dawn, with most hunting being done during the first four hours of darkness. A combination of sharp hearing and vision is used for prey location. These owls hunt mainly from perches, occasionally hovering to catch prey. This owl mainly hunts in open woodlands, along the edges of open fields or wetlands, or makes short forays into open fields. When prey is spotted, the owl dives quickly and seizes it in its talons. Small prey will usually be swallowed whole on the spot, while larger prey is carried in the bill to a perch and then torn into pieces. An Eastern Screech Owl will tend to frequent areas in its home range where it hunted successfully on previous nights.

The eastern screech owl's sense of hearing is so acute that it can even locate mammals under heavy vegetation or snow. The bird's ears are placed asymmetrically on its head, enabling it to use the differences between each ear's perception of sound to home in on prey. Additionally, the feathers the eastern screech owl uses to fly are serrated at their tips. This muffles the noise the bird makes when it flaps its wings, enabling it to sneak up on prey quietly.

For the better part of the year, large insects are favored in their diet, with invertebrates often comprising more than half of the owls' diet. Some regularly eaten insects include beetles, moths, crickets, grasshoppers and cicadas. Also taken are crayfish, snails, spiders, earthworms, scorpions, and centipedes. Small mammals, ranging in size from shrews to rabbits, are regular prey and often become the owl's primary prey during winter. Small rodents such as microtine rodents and mice comprise about 67% of mammals taken, although rodents of a similar weight to the owl, such as rats and squirrels are also taken. Small birds such as chickadees, sparrows and warblers are the most common avian prey and such species are normally caught directly off of their nocturnal perches or during nocturnal migration. However, much larger avian prey is sometimes caught, including rock pigeons, northern bobwhite and even ruffed grouse (which are heavier than the screech owls). Irregularly, small fish, small snakes, lizards, baby soft-shelled turtles, small frogs, toads, and salamanders are also preyed upon. They have even been observed hunting for fish at fishing holes made by people or cracks in ice at bodies of water during winter.