Talk:Great horned owl

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Sourcing
Sources for South America and for five hoots: , Peterson's field guide, personal experience. --JerryFriedman 22:50, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The article mentions that the owl can perceive the depth of sounds better than humans. Firstly, this would require a reference. This fact is attributed the asymmetrical placement of the ears. However, this only allows them better perception of sound elevation (up-down), not distance. If they truly have better depth perception than humans (an area of hearing science that is not well studied in any case) than that would be very interesting.they are very well kept in te body if you knwo what i mean. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.112.5.1 (talk) 15:30, 14 May 2007
 * The article reports of one Great Horned Owl that killed a human in defense of its eggs. This needs a reference, or it should be eliminated. Peter (talk) 20:16, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. I could not find any reference for this, so I've removed it. If someone can produce a reference, perhaps it could be added back in. Quaternion (talk) 19:10, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * On listverse, I recently read this 'fact'. I can't remember the exact name of the list or if there was a source but if someone wanted to, they could check. The list title was something like "Ten Animals you didn't know could kill you", maybe. Or possibly one about impressive raptors. Gatorgirl7563 (talk) 12:16, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Longevity of Great Horned Owls
How long do these birds live in the wild? --Jimaynard 15:15, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

According to the article, they can live as long as 37 years in captivity, and about 13 years in the wild. 149.152.191.253 18:56, 6 September 2007

May kill cats (and foxes)?
I dimly recall reading, long, long ago, that it is not at all unusual for these owls to kill domestic cats and even occasionally small foxes. I have no cite and probably won't find one. Anybody? -- Writtenonsand (talk) 13:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I have a bit of a background in studying the GHO and have read about such encounters before, but my understanding is that they are extremely rare and typically involve sub-adult cats. Some people like to perpetuate the story of owls preying on cats in order to help convince people to keep their cats indoors (either because they're cat lovers or because they have concerns about the impact of cats on wild bird and small mammal population). Remember, the GHO is typically no more than 4 pounds and many adult domestic cats weight close to or more than 10 pounds, so when you consider the formidable weapons a cat possesses, there are much better options for prey than something that's fully capable of killing the owl, unlike most other prey species. That isn't to say that an owl could not ever successfully prey on a domestic cat and I believe there are instances where it has occurred (although like I said, I would be very surprised if all but a few didn't involve sub-adult cats), but it's a pretty risky undertaking to hunt a larger predator and even if the owl is successful in killing the cat it's going to have trouble carrying it off to feed at its leisure because of the cat's bulk. 149.79.35.227 (talk) 18:17, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

It isn't mentioned in the article but GHO's have a reputation for feeding on skunks. I know that the owl's perching place sometimes smells like a skunk has been very upset there. While a bird that wasn't affected by a skunk's smell might find a skunk less formidable than a cat, it would still be pretty tough for a four-pound bird. So I would reject the whole skunk idea as folklore but I have been near roosting places and smelled skunk. 71.234.37.99 (talk) 02:15, 6 August 2008 (UTC)Will in New Haven71.234.37.99 (talk) 02:15, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

My uncle in Minnesota believes an owl killed his two Siamese-Persian mixes. He's an experienced outdoorsman. He says the cats were small -- thin like Siamese while tiny and furry like Persian, and didn't have any 'streetsmarts', unlike his current cat, which his wife still lets outside even after losing two. Gatorgirl7563 (talk) 12:09, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Hunting at night?
Shouldn't that read dusk and dawn. Not that I'm saying it's not hunting in the middle of the night, but I'd say in non-urban, non-artificially lit settings dusk and dawn would be the most active phases. 71.236.26.74 (talk) 06:41, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Hearing depth perception
Following up on comment (top of page) by Forpeterssake. As a starting point for a discussion of owls' hearing depth perception, we should take a look at the research of Masakazu Konishi. A brain map of auditory space [for owls] and How do owls localize interaurally phase-ambiguous signals? The relevant terms in physiology appear to be sound localization and binaural fusion. NinetyNineFennelSeeds (talk) 14:37, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Calls
The section on their calls is very unsatisfactory. First of all it doesn't do justice to the variety of calls they make, or the distinct difference between male in female calls (the typically male and female calls, are an entirely different pattern of syllables not merely a matter of the one being higher and rising at the end).

The "ho-ho-hoo hoo hoo" it cites could conceivably be intended as either the typical female call or male call, though the two are quite different, and it seems to me a truer approximation of the female call (the typical male call is harder to convey with human speech syllables because of the rapidity of some of the initial syllables). However in either case, it is quite common for this call to be six or even more syllables where as the text indicates only 5 sometimes 4. (Here's a sample of the typical female call, which matches what I've heard: 4 short syllables and 2 long: )

I also don't find "ho" a very good way to convey a short hoo sound. One would read "ho" as the same sound as in the word "show", as opposed to the sound in the word "shoe", and even the short syllables are clearly a hoo noise not a ho.

I'm not enough of an owl expert to feel comfortable rewriting this section, but I can only hope some expert will tend to it at some point.--Ericjs (talk) 23:39, 22 November 2009 (UTC)


 * So fix it! Eeekster (talk) 23:44, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Whether to add something to 'Food and feeding behavior'
How do people feel about adding the following?

"In comparison with the endangered owls, the great horned owl is a generalist, meaning it hunts a wide variety of prey. Great horned owls share habitat with the barn owl and short-eared owl and also prey upon voles.  However, they also catch a variety of rabbits, gophers and mice." (In case you can't read the footnote, here it is again: p. 61 Owls by Rebecca O'Connor. Farmington Hills, Michigan: Lucent Books, 2003.)

I shall wait several days for a reaction. If there isn't one, then I shall tentatively add this passage. Thanks for your attention. Earththings (talk) 19:34, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Missing sections
I came to this article to see if there was an overview of the GHO as a symbol in human culture (symbology, mythology) throughout the Americas. I don't know if this has been a subject of edit warring, but here's my vote for such a section, properly sourced, especially if someone has already written it, only to see it deleted. If such a subject is too large for this article, then it should be a separate article, with a link in the (missing) == See also == section. --Lexein (talk) 12:26, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Overly detailed
I think I agree with the "overly detailed" tag. The detail inserted last July is great stuff, but is way too detailed. It could be split off into another article to great advantage. --jpgordon:==( o ) 04:59, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it is too detailed as such; it is a technical article after all, and the subject is large, but there are a few items that might be farmed out to an article on owls in general, not being specific to the GHO. Maybe a bit of reformatting and re-organisation would be nice too. JonRichfield (talk) 15:51, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Large amount of copyvio material
The article currently is stuffed with sentences and passages copied from another, non-free source. Please have a look at what the copyvio detector spits out. As the article is too detailed anyway, I propose to give it a good pruning and re-formulating in the next few days to get rid of these issues.-- Elmidae  (talk) 07:56, 11 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Did you read the bottom of that "non-free source" page? It says "Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia." Hard to tell which, with that kind of attribution! I'd suggest that Jungle Dragon's text might come from Wikipedia, rather than the other way around. There is nothing on that website that says anything about who writes it or where they get their information. A large bit appears similar to a Chinese NGO website which has used Wikipedia text. I'd suggest your tag may not be appropriate! MeegsC (talk) 12:43, 4 March 2016 (UTC)


 * , I agree with and I'll remove the tag. I do think that this article needs serious pruning. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 16:29, 29 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Hmm. You are right, I guess there might be some circularity involved. A good pruning is probably still a good thing for the article and I shall carry on with that today - sorry, it did somewhat slip off my plate.-- Elmidae  (talk) 10:33, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

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Pets as prey
Hi, I think we need a separate section discussing the predation of the GHOwl on peoples pets, in particular dogs and cats. I know they are mentioned under "other mammals", but this makes it difficult for the regular reader to notice that their pets can be in danger from these owls. Please see this article for example.

"G Horned Owl" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect G Horned Owl. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 January 22 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Hog Farm Talk 17:28, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Size and weight
The website https://greathornedowl.net as found via duckduckgo says:
 * "Males weigh up to 3.545 lb while females averaging 2.698 lb."

This contradicts the text currently in the Physiology and measurements section here, which says the females are larger and the males smaller, with mean body weight
 * "1,608 g (3.545 lb) for females and 1,224 g (2.698 lb) for males".

– Athaenara ✉  10:15, 11 June 2022 (UTC)