Illustration © David Allen Sibley.
Learn more about these drawings.
Text © Kenn Kaufman, adapted from
Lives of North American Birds
Photo: Rick & Nora Bowers/Vireo
Northern Pygmy-Owl
Glaucidium gnoma
| Conservation status | Generally uncommon, but widespread; no evidence of general declines. |
|---|---|
| Family | Owls |
| Habitat | Open coniferous or mixed woods, wooded canyons. Found in a wide variety of forest types, including open oak groves, sycamores in canyons, pine-oak woodland, coniferous forest of far north and high mountains. Generally in partly open habitats rather than solid unbroken forest. |
Photo Gallery
Feeding Behavior
Hunts most actively near dawn and dusk, but also at other times. Watches for prey from a perch, then makes very rapid pursuit flight.
Eggs
3-4, sometimes 2-7. White. Incubation apparently is by female only, about 28 days. Young: Both parents take part in providing food for young, with male bringing much of prey, female feeding it to young. Female may roost in nest hole with young at first. Age of young at first flight about 27-28 days.
Young
Both parents take part in providing food for young, with male bringing much of prey, female feeding it to young. Female may roost in nest hole with young at first. Age of young at first flight about 27-28 days.
Diet
Includes rodents, birds, insects, lizards. Diet varies with location and season. Rodents such as voles and mice are often major prey, also catches mammals as large as gophers and squirrels. During warm weather, eats many large insects such as grasshoppers, crickets, cicadas, beetles. Small songbirds are sometimes up to one-third of diet. In southern parts of range, may catch many lizards.
Nesting
Some birds defend territories all year; in breeding season, pairs defend very large nesting territories. Courtship displays at dusk may involve rapid aerial chases through the trees near potential nest sites. In courtship on perch, male feeds female. Nest site is in cavity in tree, either in natural hollow or (perhaps more often) in abandoned woodpecker hole, and usually 8-25' above ground.
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Songs and Calls
A series of mellow whistles on 1 pitch. Also a thin rattle around the nest.How climate change could affect this bird's range
In the broadest and most detailed study of its kind, Audubon scientists have used hundreds of thousands of citizen-science observations and sophisticated climate models to predict how birds in the U.S. and Canada will react to climate change.
Read more: climate.audubon.org
Owls
Northern Pygmy-Owl
Each map is a visual guide to where a particular bird species may find the climate conditions it needs to survive in the future. We call this the bird’s “climatic range.”
The colors indicate the season in which the bird may find suitable conditions— blue for winter, yellow for summer (breeding), and green for where they overlap (indicating their presence year-round).
The darker the shaded area, the more likely it is the bird species will find suitable climate conditions to survive there.
The outline of the approximate current range for each season remains fixed in each frame, allowing you to compare how the range will expand, contract, or shift in the future.
The first frame of the animation shows where the bird can find a suitable climate today (based on data from 2000). The next three frames predict where this bird’s suitable climate may shift in the future—one frame each for 2020, 2050, and 2080.
You can play or pause the animation with the orange button in the lower left, or select an individual frame to study by clicking on its year.
Northern Pygmy-Owl In the News More News
Books
Why I Use Comics to Share My Love of Birds and Science
Rosemary Mosco, creator of the comic “Bird and Moon,” on how humor, animals, and cartoons are a natural fit.
Conservation
Secret Pools in the Oregon Desert Are Magnets for All Kinds of Thirsty Animals
Created by the government more than half a century ago, the ‘guzzlers’ are kept running by volunteers set on bringing life to the withering outback.
