Hi everyone,



On the topic of the size and nature of prey items chosen by owls, here is a story indicating that not only will owls take cats, but small dogs as well.? I posted this story a number of years ago, but since there are new folks on the list and the topic of 'what do owls eat' came up - here it is again.



I lived in Beaverton, Oregon for a few years in the mid-80's.? One of my annual raft trip buddies and his family lived a few miles away and had a white lap dog puppy - Teddy, a Lhasa Apso, Shi Tzu or some such, not very big but not Chihuahua in size either.? The?nightly ritual was for them to open their back door whereupon the dog ran out onto their deck, down the steps into the back yard, did its business and then ran back in the house for the night.? One particular night they opened the door for Teddy and it had been closed only a couple of seconds when they heard a hideous yelping outside and my friend ran out to see what was happening.? When he got outside, Teddy dropped out of the sky onto the deck with a thump, leaped up and ran yelping into the house.? Teddy was (not surprisingly) quite traumatized and bleeding from talon wounds in his back.? Since this was several hours after dark, the only candidate was an owl, and people in the neighborhood later saw a Great Horned Owl frequenting the area and several neighborhood pets also disappeared.? I wasn't there when the incident happened, but saw the talon wounds shortly thereafter.? Teddy survived the incident but wouldn't go outside on his own for quite some time after that...!? If Great Horned Owls are capable of taking prey that is cat or small dog-sized, one would presume this would not be all that difficult or uncommon?for a Barred Owl to do so as well.





John Tubbs

Snoqualmie, WA

johntubbs at comcast.net

www.tubbsphoto.com