Common Name: Great Horned Owl, Tiger Owl, Desert Great Horned Owl
Scientific Name: Bubo virginianus, Bubo virginianus pallescens
Subspecies: The Great Horned Owl has a large number of subspecies, more than 20 altogether, have been named. However, many of these are not true subspecies and only examples of individual or clinal variation.
Description: The great horned owl is generally colored for camouflage. The underparts of the species are usually light with some brown horizontal barring; the upper parts and upper wings are generally a mottled brown usually bearing heavy, complex, darker markings. All subspecies are darkly barred to some extent along the sides. A variable-sized white patch is seen on the throat. The white throat may continue as a streak running down the middle of the breast even when the birds are not displaying, which in particularly pale individuals can widen at the belly into a large white area. The skin of the feet and legs, though almost entirely obscured by feathers, is black. Even tropical great horned owls have feathered legs and feet. The feathers on the feet of the great horned owl are the second-longest known in any owl (after the snowy owl). All great horned owls have a facial disc. This can be reddish, brown, or gray in color (depending on geographical and racial variation) and is demarked by a dark rim culminating in bold, blackish side brackets. This species’ “horns” are tufts of feathers, called plumicorns.
Distribution: The Desert Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus pallescens) is found from the San Joaquin Valley southeastwards through arid regions of southeastern California and southern Utah eastwards to western Kansas and southwards to Guerrero and western Veracruz in Mexico. Typically, great horned owls are highly sedentary, often capable of utilizing a single territory throughout their mature lives.
Habitat: From deserts to deciduous forests, from pampas to praries, from tundra to tropical rainforest, and from mangroves to mountains, the Great-horned Owl can be found in all but the most extreme environments.
Juvenile Great Horned owls are initially covered with a thick layer of white down, which grows on their naked bodies after around a week to 10 days. The iconic ear tufts of the Great Horned owl grow after around three weeks. After two to three months, the young owls are covered with much of their adult plumage, though this can take a couple more months to develop fully. Fledging occurs after around six weeks, at which point the chicks will move to a branch and undertake their first flights. The juvenile birds remain with their parents for the remainder of the breeding season and much of summer.
