page_title: Barred owl
section_title: Interspecies predatory relationships
hierarchical_section_title: Barred owl / Dietary biology / Interspecies predatory relationships
caption_attribution_description: A great horned owl is perched on the transition from sage steppe to riparian habitats at Seedskadee NWR. Great horned owls are common in the river valley and their calls can be heard up and down the river on calm nights. They are a significant predator on Seedskadee NWR and there are very few things they will not eat. Great horned owls have the most diverse diet of all North American raptors. They eat mostly mammals and birds at Seedskadee NWR , especially cottontail rabbits, white-tailed jackrabbits, meadow voles, mice, and American Coots. They also kill and eat many other species including least chipmunks, white-tailed prairie dogs, bats, feral house cats, ducks, mergansers, grebes, rails, other owls, hawks, crows, ravens, doves, and starlings. They are one of the few to kill porcupines and striped skunks. They supplement their diet with reptiles, insects, fish, invertebrates, and sometimes carrion. They are primarily nocturnal hunters and use their excellent hearing and night vision to locate prey. They will occassionally hunt in broad daylight, but run the risk of other raptors harrassing them severely. We have spotted both prairie falcons and Northern harriers taking turns driving great horned owls out of their territory. &lt;a href="http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Great_Horned_Owl/lifehistory" rel="nofollow"&gt;www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Great_Horned_Owl/lifehistory&lt;/a&gt; Photo: Tom Koerner/USFWS
context_page_description: The barred owl, also known as the northern barred owl or, more informally, hoot owl, is a large species of owl. A member of the true owl family, Strigidae, they belong to the genus Strix, which is also the origin of the family’s name under Linnaean taxonomy. Barred owls are brown to gray overall, with dark striping on the underside contrasted immediately above that with similarly-dark and tight barring about their throat and nape. Barred owls are largely native to eastern North America, but have expanded their range to the west coast of North America where they are considered invasive. Mature forests are their preferred habitat, but they can also acclimate to various gradients of open woodlands. Their diet consists mainly of small mammals, but this species is an opportunistic predator and is known to prey upon other small vertebrates such as birds, reptiles, and amphibians, as well as a variety of invertebrates.
  Barred owls are brown to gray overall, with dark striping on the underside. Barred owls have typical nesting habits for a true owl, tending to raise a relatively small brood often in a tree hollow or snag in forested areas.
context_section_description: The barred owl's range overlaps with multiple other predators of similar prey species. Due to the time period barred owls are active, the most interaction occurs with other owl species. Of the owls in North America, about three-quarters are reliant on similar small mammal prey, usually rodents, with a mixture of other prey genera as supplements. Other than its ecology where it today co-exists with spotted owls, however, there is some level of niche differentiation from a majority of sympatric owls. In the eastern forest biome, the barred owl is the only large owl species to dwell mainly in continuous forest areas. While many of the owls sympatric with barred owls over majority of their eastern and Midwestern range share a preference for hole-nesting, smaller hole-nesting owls usually prefer different habitats, such as the open country-dwelling barn owl and the screech owls, which usually in North America dwell at the interface of forest and open habitats. Both North American species in the Aegolius owl genus are forest-dwelling cavity nesters but are much smaller and are at entirely different trophic levels. 
  A singular diurnal raptor species that mirrors the barred owl at nearly all ecological levels is the red-shouldered hawk. Both species have similar distributions, habitat preferences and somewhat similar dietary habits and trophic level. They may considered as nearly nocturnal and diurnal ecological equivalents. In multiple parts of the range, including southwestern Ohio, North Carolina and northern Michigan, the paralleling habitat usage and nesting behavior of the barred owl and red-shouldered hawk has been noted. One of the few respects in which their habitat usage differs is that the barred owl is more adaptive to nesting in suburban areas if they have old growth trees that provide plentiful tree hollows. In contrast, red-shouldered hawks tend to avoid suburban areas whilst nesting, but may acclimate to these areas during the winter. Barred owls seldom alter their range throughout the year and remain more or less constrained to the stands they used during nesting. The red-shouldered hawk averages somewhat smaller and has a more limited diet than barred owls, but probably goes after dangerous prey such as snakes more regularly. Multiple occasions are recorded where the barred owl and red-shouldered hawk have nested in the same area, often within the same grove of trees, remarkably with little to no conflict. At least one nest was found including eggs from both species. When nesting near other hawks like red-tailed hawks and Cooper's hawks, the relationship tends to be much more contentious between hawk and owl, despite barred owls sometimes sharing space or using the old nests of these hawks. A wing-clapping display by a pair of barred owls was recorded during antagonistic encounters in Manitoba with a pair of broad-winged hawks. Wing-claps were previously not recorded in this species, and when recorded for other owl species were often for the purposes of courtship displays. 
  One predator that is a major source of conflict for the barred owl is the great horned owl. In every part of their range, barred owls are compelled to share space with the larger owls. There is habitat partitioning between the barred owl and great horned owl that allows them to often co-exist. Great horned owls prefer various more open habitats mixed with trees, often in rather upland areas, which differs from the habitats preferred by the barred owl. If a great horned owl moves into an area, barred owls appear to avoid said areas, based on radio telemetry data. In much of the east, habitat alteration and fragmentation tends to favor the great horned owl at the expense of the barred owl. Where more continuous forest is available, however, the great horned and barred owl can occur surprisingly close to one another. In one case, a barred owl was observed to roost only 400 m (1,300 ft) from a great horned owl. In general the reforestation at the northern sections of the Great Plains have, on the contrary, benefited barred owls (and may have bee
caption: Great horned owls are the most severe competitor and predator of barred owls.
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