Great Horned Owl Vocalizations
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Most people know that Great Horned Owls hoot. But most don't realize that there are several types of hoots, plus a variety of chitters, squawks, hisses, and bill clacking also in their repertoire. The International Owl Center is working to record the complete vocal repertoire of the Great Horned Owl along with associated behavioral context, which is why they have been breeding a non-releasable pair of owls in captivity.
All evidence points to vocalizations in owls being hard-wired, not learned, so their vocalizations in captivity shouldn't differ from owls in the wild. So far these are the types of vocalizations that have been documented: HOOTS Territorial Greeting Emphatic, sometimes with single squawks Hoot without the last note Hoot with an additional note at the end Staccato CHITTERS Clucky Conversational Annoyed Screaming SQUAWKS Quiet Single Double Multiple Begging NON VOCAL Hisses Bill Clacking Click here for our preliminary research paper on Great Horned Owl vocalizations for more detail. A more thorough paper will be published in the future. |
HootsChittersSquawksNon-vocal Sounds |
