A Quick Guide to Owls Habitat
Owl’s habitat can be just about anywhere in the world, although you won’t find many owls in Antarctica. Owls do frequent the northernmost reaches of Canada and Alaska so some of them don’t mind the cold at all. Owls habitat can indeed be anywhere from in the tropical rainforest to high snowy mountains.
Most owls do make their homes in trees but not all. The burrowing owl, as his name indicates, actually lives in a burrow. But, he does not dig the space himself, he takes over holes that were originally made and used by gophers and other digging mammals. Usually owl’s habitat is determined by the amount of food for them to eat in a specific location.
A good example of this is the habitat of short-eared and long-eared owls as well as barn owls. They require the presence of rough grass because their number one food is voles. A vole is a rodent that looks much like a mouse except for the fact that it is usually black or reddish black.
Voles inhabit fields that have not been used recently and have tall grass. Voles are like moles in that they live underneath the earth, burrowing all over the field, making a whole little city of underground tunnels.
Some people who want to make habitat to promote various kinds of wildlife can make owl’s habitat by only cutting off the top of a field’s growth, and leaving around eight inches so that there is plenty of undergrowth for burrowing mammals to live. By making vole habitat you are also making owl’s habitat and increasing the chances that barn owls and other vole-eaters will not become extinct.
Other owls get the food they need to live from woodlands. This type of owl’s habitat provides them with a good diet of wood mice. One of the best trees to attract owls is the beech tree. That’s not because owls eat the beech mast, or beechnuts, but because the mice eat them. In this way, the carnivorous owls get nice, fat, juicy mice to eat to keep them in the area.
As long as owl’s habitat is left alone by man and in such a state as to produce a great number of rodents, there will be no loss of owls in a region. One of the things that those people managing woodlands can do is not to clear out all of the undercover where mice live.
Tawny owls will particularly benefit from this practice. Wood left on the ground and a pile left to rot will draw all kinds of insects which also feeds owls.
No matter where you live, it is probably owls habitat. If you do your part to support initiatives to keep forest and grassland from being over-used and developed, we should not have to worry about more owls becoming extinct.
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