Northern hawk owl - Sierra Club BC
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Northern hawk owl

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Northern hawk owl

Surnia ulula

Appearance

Northern hawk owls are a little smaller than crows and have long, rounded tails and striped bellies. They have brown feathers with white spots, yellow eyes and black circles around their eyes.

Range & Habitat

They are found across western Canada, Alaska and northern US. They like to hang around fields, bogs and open edges of forests.

REciprocal Relationships

The Northern hawk owl is gifted with excellent eyesight. They can see prey up to nearly a kilometre away, which makes them very good daytime hunters. Hawk owls usually mate for life and the female tends the eggs and young while the male finds food and protects them against predators. The new owls leave the nest when they are three to five weeks old. A northern hawk owl can live for ten years. 
 
Hawk owls eat small birds in the winter and mice, rabbits and squirrels in the summer. They hunt day and night, and keep themselves clean by preening and rolling in the snow. These birds are eaten by great horned owls and northern goshawks. Their treed habitat is threatened by logging.

Their call sounds like a screechy ul-ul-ul-ul. In some Tlingit stories, owl hoots were a sign of good luck!

Status

COSEWIC: Not at Risk 
CDC: Yellow 

More Information

If you belong to a First Nation with a story or piece of information not represented here and you would like to share more about this species, please email us at education@sierraclub.bc.ca.

Photo Credit

Canva

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