Northern Pygmy-Owl

Adults are 15–17 cm (5.9–6.7 in) in overall length and are gray, brownish-gray or rufous in color. This owl has a round white-spotted head, weakly defined facial disc, and dark upper breast, wings and tail, the latter quite long compared to other owls. The eyes are yellow and the bill is yellowish-green. The bird has two black nape spots outlined in white on the back of its head, which look like eyes. The mid to lower breast is white with darker vertical streaking. The legs are feathered down to the four well-armed toes on each foot.

The northern pygmy owl is native to Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Their habitat includes temperate, subtropical and tropical moist forest, savanna, and wetlands. In Oregon and Washington they are known to nest and forage in the center of dense, continuous forests, near streams. An example of their habitat is Forest Park in Portland, Oregon, USA. Their breeding habitat includes open to semi-open woodlands of foothills and mountains in western North America. As the northern pygmy owl inhabits both pure coniferous forests and forests with a mixture of conifers and deciduous trees, they may be negatively affected by modern forestry. This is predicted due to their dependence on mature forest for hunting, and dependence on cavities for nesting, roosting, and caching prey in the winter.

Males will regularly perch at the top of the tallest available conifer trees to issue their territorial call, making them somewhat ventriloquistic in sloped landscapes, and causing confusion among observers on the ground hoping to get a glimpse. They are incredibly hard to spot because of their size and color. Unlike other owls, northern pygmy owls are not silent flyers. When they fly, their wings make a buzzing or whirring sound. Like many other Glaucidium owls, as well as some falcons, hawks, and owls of other genera, northern pygmy owls possess a pair of eyespots on the nape. While their exact function is unclear, many hypotheses have been proposed. Some ornithologists believe that they may discourage predators or birds attempting to mob the owl from attacking from behind, while others believe they may instead aid the owl in capturing mobbing songbirds, either by encouraging mobbing or by diverting them away from the back of the owl and towards the front so that they can be caught more easily. One study measured the reactions of mobbing birds to wooden pygmy owl replicas, some with eyespots and some without. The researchers found that, relative to replicas without eyespots, birds mobbing replicas with eyespots were more likely to attack from the front and less likely to do so from behind. …