Species: Strix varia

Barred Owl

Species

Birds

Show on Lists

Terrestrial vertebrates: birds

Encyclopedia of Puget Sound

Classification

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Craniata

Class

Aves

Order

Strigiformes

Family

Strigidae

Genus

Strix

NatureServe

Source:
ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.103621

Classification

Other Global Common Names

Buho Listado - chouette rayée

Informal Taxonomy

Animals, Vertebrates - Birds - Other Birds

Formal Taxonomy

Animalia - Craniata - Aves - Strigiformes - Strigidae - Strix - of Middle America by some authors (AOU 1983).

Ecology and Life History

Short General Description

A bird.

Migration

true - true - false - Northernmost populations partially migratory. None of 158 band recoveries in North America occurred more than 10 km from banding location (Johnson 1987).

Non-migrant

true

Locally Migrant

true

Food Comments

Eats mostly mice but also wide variety of other mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates (Terres 1980). Small mammals such as MICROTUS, PEROMYSCUS, and BLARINA often comprise bulk of diet. In Mississippi, invertebrates (especially crayfishes) may be more important than small mammals (see Allen 1987). Little used habitats such as marshes and old fields may nevertheless be important as sources of prey organisms that immigrate into cover types favored by the owls (Allen 1987).

Reproduction Comments

Egg dates: late March-May in southern New England, late February-April in New Jersey, Illinois, and Iowa, January-March in Florida. Nesting peaks from early March to early May in Maryland (see Bushman and Therres 1988). Clutch size usually is 2-3. Incubation lasts 28-33 days. Young may leave nest at 4-5 weeks, fly at 6 weeks, may still receive some food from parents at 4 months.

Ecology Comments

Home range usually is less than 400 ha (but up to 760 ha) over 2-7 months in Minnesota, average 273 hectares; usually no overlap except in mated pair; boundaries generally are constant from year to year (Nicholls and Warner 1972). Annual home range averaged 282 hectares in Michigan (Elody and Sloan 1985) and 971 hectares in Saskatchewan (Mazur et al. 1998). Reported density: 0.03-1.0 pairs/sq km. <br><br>Expanding populations in Pacific Northwest could threaten spotted owl through competiton and/or hybridization (see Hamer et al. 1994).

Length

Weight

801

Conservation Status

NatureServe Global Status Rank

Global Status Last Reviewed

1996-11-27

Global Status Last Changed

1996-11-27

Distribution

Conservation Status Map

Global Range

RESIDENT from southeastern Alaska (possibly), British Columbia (Dunbar et al. 1991), western Washington, eastern Oregon (probably), and northeastern California east through northern Idaho, northwestern Montana, central Alberta, and central Saskatchewan, and from southern Manitoba east to southern Quebec and Nova Scotia, and south to southern Texas, Gulf Coast and southern Florida, west to eastern Great Plains woodlands; also in central Mexico. Map in Allen (1987) shows range extending north to extreme southeastern Yukon and extreme southwestern Northwest Territories, and does not include southeastern Alaska. Range has expanded into Pacific Northwest in last few decades (e.g., see Sharp 1989); now common in forested areas in southwestern British Columbia and northern Washington and rapidly increasing in Oregon and northern California (see Hamer et al. 1994). Range expansion apparently associated with conversion of pure coniferous forest to mixed deciduous-coniferous forest as a result of lumbering (see Allen 1987).

ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.103621