page_title: Long-eared owl
section_title: Distribution and habitat
hierarchical_section_title: Long-eared owl / Distribution and habitat
caption_attribution_description: Asio otus English: Long-eared Owl in San Luis Obispo County, California, USA.
context_page_description: The long-eared owl, also known as the northern long-eared owl or, more informally, as the lesser horned owl or cat owl, is a medium-sized species of owl with an extensive breeding range. The scientific name is from Latin. The genus name Asio is a type of eared owl, and otus also refers to a small, eared owl. The species breeds in many areas through Europe and the Palearctic, as well as in North America. This species is a part of the larger grouping of owls known as typical owls, of the family Strigidae, which contains most extant species of owl.
  This owl shows a partiality for semi-open habitats, particularly woodland edge, as they prefer to roost and nest within dense stands of wood but prefer to hunt over open ground. The long-eared owl is a somewhat specialized predator, focusing its diet almost entirely on small rodents, especially voles, which quite often compose most of their diet. Under some circumstances, such as population cycles of their regular prey, arid or insular regional habitats or urbanization, this species can adapt fairly well to a diversity of prey, including birds and insects. All owls do not build their own nests.
context_section_description: The long-eared owl has an extremely large distributional range. In Eurasia, they are distributed from the Iberian Peninsula and the British Isles (including almost the entirety of Ireland), in both of which they are found somewhat spottily but quite broadly, especially for an owl. From western France east through the remainder of Europe they are found nearly everywhere, though still usually quite common in these areas, there are small spots where they do not usually occur in Italy, Austria and Southeastern Europe. In Scandinavia they are found only as a breeding species in about the southern two-thirds of Norway, Sweden and Finland while they usual persist year around in haunts in the southern tips of Norway and Sweden, respectively, as well as in all of Denmark. In coastal Norway they are found at their worldwide northern limit as breeding bird, with long-eared owls nesting as far north as in the Subarctic zone of Troms. In latitudinal range, they are found as far south the Azores, the Canary Islands while their limited breeding range in north Africa is from Morocco to Tunisia, as well as seemingly in northernmost Algeria. Out of Europe, they are found very spottily as breeders in Turkey, northernmost Syria, Israel and Lebanon. They are quite broadly distributed within Russia, breeding in about the southern two-thirds of the country (north as far as roughly Chernyshevsky and Yakutsk) and often occurring year around in about the southern third of it (north to about the cities of Perm, Tyumen and Tomsk) and east to Siberia, ranging far as Sakhalin. Their range is continuous from Russia into most of Kazakhstan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, about half of Uzbekistan and infrequently into northern Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. In the east, they range through most of Mongolia (absent from the southwest) and the western and eastern parts of northern China, with seasonally uncertain status in the Koreas. Long-eared owls are found throughout the islands of Japan but mainly winter only in points south of Osaka. The long-eared owl occurs apparently only in winter in small spots of southern France, southern Greece, northwestern Egypt, northern Iran, southern Turkmenistan, broadly in much of Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India (such as the Kutch, Punjab, Kashmir), as well as to the east in Bhutan, southern China, Taiwan and most of South Korea. Irruptive wanderings have resulted in vagrant long-eared owls in various places such as the Faroe islands, Iceland and Madeira as well as Ryukyu Islands in the east.
  This species is found widely distributed in North America as well. Their northern limits are reached in much of British Columbia, though they are mainly absent from the western and coastal part, with the breeding range scarcely spilling over into the southern part of the Northwest territories. As is the case in most of Eurasia, they are usually found at up to 50 degrees north. Long-eared owls are also found breeding in most of Alberta, all but northern Manitoba and southern Ontario and Quebec only to the southernmost part of the Hudson Bay. However, with the exception of inland southern British Columbia, southern Alberta, and the southern parts of Ontario and Quebec, as well as an isolated population in Newfoundland, long-eared owls usually vacate their Canadian range during winter. The species range as a breeding species is far more extensive in the west than the east within the United States. They breed in Washington, Montana and North Dakota mostly continuously to much of California, where habitat is appropriate, Arizona, western Colorado and western New Mexico as well as less broadly in South Dakota and Iowa. Even though they are absent from the Pacific coasts in Washington and Oregon, they may be found breeding along the Pacific in southern California and even Baja California in Mexico. The first record of breeding for mainland Mexico was recorded for an incidental observed nest built by owls in Janos Biosphere Reserve in Chihuahua. They also breed and occur year around in most of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. Breeding and/
caption: In most parts of the range, such as here in California, long-eared owls favor stands of conifers adjacent to openings.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 40D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2010:01:20 22:16:45", "Image ExifOffset": "208", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF FNumber": "8", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Shutter Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "640", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:01:14 10:12:35", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:01:14 10:12:35", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "5994/643", "EXIF ApertureValue": "6", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "560", "EXIF SubSecTime": "29", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "29", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "29", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2916", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2109", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "261863/59", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "288988/65", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}