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Northwest is home
Great gray owls
Paul Bannick Major gifts director,
pbannick@conservationnw.org
Although most great gray owls live in the boreal forests
of Canada and Alaska, we are blessed to have them in Washington's northeast and southeast corners where they live in older
forests with large snags interrupted by large grassy openings.
Great gray owls in the Northwest require older open forests
with a canopy to hide the nesting and roosting of this 5-foot
wing-spanned owl, but since they feed mostly upon voles and
gophers and hunt using their hearing, they need open meadows interrupted by perches for their hunting needs.
In Washington, most of these secretive owls spend March
through October near their breeding territories, but deep
snow and scarcity of prey pushes them to lower elevations
where they often show up in surrounding ranches, farms, and
home sites. As a result of these seasonal movements, great gray
owls require a connected landscape that allows owls to survive
deep snow, establish new territories, and find mates.
A great gray owl lands on a fencepost in northeast Washington.
© Paul Bannick, paulbannick.com
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