Who's Hoo? Hear Individual Owls

There are a number of wild and captive Great Horned Owls who have been or currently are a part of this vocal study. They have been given names for ease of reference and to reflect something about their individualness, since the birds each have a slightly different territorial hoot.

Captive Owls

Alice
Fell out of her nest in Antigo, WI in 1997, permanently damaging her left wing. She is unable to fly and live in the wild, so worked at the Houston Nature Center and lives in the home of her licensed handler, Karla Bloem. Alice is imprinted on humans and treats Karla as her mate. Karla started a vocal study on the species out of self-defense when she realized no one else had ever studied their vocalizations and she needed to figure out what Alice was trying to say to her (and how she was supposed to respond.) ​

Iris
A female from the Antigo, WI area. She came to the Raptor Education Group with a puncture to her right eye that left her blind in that eye. She was deemed unreleasable and got chummy with Rusty in captivity, so the two of them were selected as the breeding pair for this vocal study. She was named Iris because of her eye injury and moved to Houston in October of 2010. ​

Ruby
Ruby is the offspring of Rusty and Iris, hatched in 2014. She is also used as education ambassadors at the International Owl Center.

Rusty
A male Great Horned Owl from the Antigo, WI area. He was hit by a car and is blind in his right eye. He can't live in the wild so is living in Houston, MN as part of a vocal study Karla is conducting on his species. He moved to Houston in October of 2010 and was named for his dark rusty coloration. ​

Wild Owls

Wendell
The resident male owl at Karla's place when she began the vocal study in 2004. Wendell was Wheezy's mate and once showed up in the neighbor's chicken coop. Karla was called to extract him. In early 2005 a new pair (Victor and Virginia) pushed Wendell and Wheezy out of their existing territory just to the east of Karla's property. When Wheezy went to The Raptor Center with West Nile Virus in 2006, Wendell was seen nearly every day on the farm buildings where Wheezy had been picked up. Apparently he was waiting for her to return. In September of 2006 he hooted with Victor and Virginia a few nights, then was never heard from again. ​

Wheezy
The resident female owl at Karla's place when she began her vocal study in 2004. For about one month her voice was very hoarse before it returned to normal. She was found unable to fly one mile east of Karla's place in August 2006 and was sent to The Raptor Center in St. Paul. She had West Nile Virus, went blind, and wasn't going to ever be releasable, so she was euthanized. ​

Victor
A male that came from the west and pushed Wendell and Wheezy out of their existing territory at Karla's place in 2005 (hence his name). His mate was Virginia, and his territorial boundaries have varied over the years but have always included or been close to Karla's yard. ​He was last heard around 2015.

Virginia
Mate to Victor. Named for the scientific name of Great Horned Owls: Bubo virginianus. She was found unable to fly on a sandbar in the Root River over a mile east of Karla's place in July 2012. She was taken to The Raptor Center where they found a slice in her pectoral muscle filled with maggots. She was cleaned and stitched but died three weeks later, presumably from an abscess under the skin in her leg.

Scarlett Owl Hara
Her name says it all. She showed up in February 2011, a few months after Rusty and Iris moved in. She is a wild female who didn't have a mate and apparently was trying to steal Rusty away to be her mate. She tried to attack Alice at least three times by slamming into the window of the house where Alice was perched. She harassed Rusty and Iris daily for months, late into the morning, starting early in the evening, and sometimes even in the middle of the day. She hooted and squawked on the top of their cages and in the surrounding trees through June 2011. Another wild female (Jezebelle) showed up for a few days in August, then Scarlett was back again. She finally found her own mate (Rhett) in October of 2011, half a mile west of our owls.

Jezebelle
A wild, unmated female who showed up for a couple of days in early August 2011. She acted like Scarlett, hooting and squawking on Rusty and Iris' cage and slamming into a window to try to attack Alice in the house. She injured her eye when she slammed into the window. After two days Jezebelle was gone and Scarlett was back. ​

Rhett
Mate of Scarlett Owl Hara. After Scarlett was no longer heard, he flirted with Delilah as she went back and forth between him and the recently widowed Victor. Delilah eventually took him as her mate and they resided half a mile west of our owls until they were displaced by Hagar and Helga.

Delilah
She was first heard early in 2012 just west of Karla's place. Occasionally Rhett hooted in her vicinity. In June of 2012 she began coming into Karla's yard to hoot at Alice, who had just begun using her new outdoor screened "patio." She spent time with Victor a month after Victor's mate Virginia died, then went back to Rhett, then Victor, and she finally settled down with Rhett half a mile west of Karla's place. ​Later Rhett and Delilah were pushed out of the area by Hagar and Helga.

Patrick
Patrick was raised in captivity in 2013 as part of a vocal study on his species. He began sounding like an adult owl at 7 months of age. ​Rusty and Iris are his parents and Pandora and Patience are his sisters. Patrick was released to the wild in the fall of 2013.

​Pandora or Patience (sisters)
These owlets were hatched and raised in captivity by Rusty and Iris in 2013 as part of a vocal study on their species. They began hooting like a adult-sounding owls at 7 months of age. Because we couldn't read their bands while they were in captivity, we don't know which hoot belongs to which female. Patrick is their brother. Pandora and Patience were released to the wild the fall of 2013.

​P
First mate to Eastman. She sounded very similar to Pandora or Patience, so she was simply named "P" in case she turned out to be one of our owls.

Eastman
Eastman is wild a male Great Horned Owl paired with P.  After P disappeared he was single for a year before pairing up with J Low. 

Jack
Jack showed up with Jill on Christianson Hill west of our owls in the fall of 2014. He was no longer heard after Jill paired up with Hagar in 2015 or 2016, but may have taken Jill back after Hagar disappeared.

Jill
Jill showed up with Jack west of our owls the fall of 2014. When Helga disappeared, Jill paired up with Hagar and Jack was no longer heard in the area. She was attacked by Lilith in 2017, but was heard hooting that fall with a male that may have been Jack.

Hagar
Hagar moved into the area in early 2015. He and his mate Helga were very aggressive to our captive birds, repeatedly attacking their aviaries. Eventually Helga disappeared and Hagar paired up with Jill. Then the winter of 2016-2017 Hagar disappeared.

Helga
Helga showed up with Hagar, and was also very aggressive. She was around just over a year before she disappeared.

Lundberg
A wild male to the southwest of our owls. He was single in 2015, but paired up with another female named Heather in 2016.

Heather
A year after Lundberg arrived, Heather became his mate.

Lilith
Lilith was an aggressive single wild female owl that showed up in early 2017. She attacked Jill when Jill was also single. Lilith eventually left.

J. Low
Eastman’s mate, P, disappeared. For a year he had no mate, but the next year J. Low became his mate. She sounds a bit like Jill with a low voice, hence the name “J. Low”.

Alfred
Alfred showed up in 2019 and hooted up a storm, hooting from dusk to dawn every night. He would sometimes hoot into the morning and get mobbed by crows, so he was named after Alfred Hitchcock and “The Birds”.

Alma
Alfred’s mate is named “Alma” after Alfred Hitchcock’s wife. She rarely came around.

Aggie
A single wild female who showed up in November 2021. She gets our resident owls very riled, especially Ruby. She was named "Aggie" for her aggressive behavior.