Great Horned Owl Vocalizations

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.