Colours of Wildlife: African Wood Owl
Created | Updated May 5, 2019
African Wood Owl
Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"
This is a drawing I made for the carnivore project I'm working on for the University of Venda. While concentrating on mammalian predators, we're not leaving out our avian friends. This is an African Wood Owl, Strix woodfordii. 'Strix' means vampire owl monster, and the species name honours Colonel E. J. A. Woodford, a soldier of the nineteenth century. The African wood owl belongs to a large group of owls in the genera Strix and Ciccaba, the latter sometimes included in Strix. These include such beautiful and well-known owls as the Tawny Owl, the Ural Owl, the Great Grey Owl, and the American Barred Owl. There are species in South America and Asia also. The African wood owl is the only member of the group to occur in Africa. It prefers wooded habitat: riverine forest, well-developed woodland, and true forest, both tropical rainforest and cooler mountain forest. It has adapted to make use of man-made plantations and well-wooded suburban gardens. It occurs over most of the moister parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
To-whit,-to-who
Shakespeare described the call of the tawny owl as 'to-whit,-to-who, a merry note'. The wood owl has a rather similar call, mellow and melodious. It consists of several 'who' or 'hu'-notes, given at different pitches and at varying intervals, making up a recognizable little song. What's more, the male and female serenade each other, the female following the male's call but at a higher pitch. Often the calls overlap, the female starting before the male has finished. The wood owl's call is often heard and indeed it is a characteristic sound of the African woods and bushlands. I myself have heard the call but not yet seen the birds themselves!
Wood owls are quite pretty to look at, if you do see them. They have rounded heads without the ear tufts seen in eagle owls or scops owls. They have dark eyes set off by white crescents of feathers around the bill and over the eyebrows. Their body plumage is brown, with white spots on the back and dark-and-white barring on their bellies. This is sufficient to give them good camouflage in their wooded habitat. Like most owls, they rest by day, perching motionless with eyes closed and looking much like a bit of broken branch. They're confiding and, if you can spot one, you're likely to be able to get close to it. The owl will sit still, hoping it hasn't been spotted. In fact it may be so much in denial that it will allow itself to be touched without protest! Sometimes it will move away and utter a soft 'oop oop' note, bobbing its head and snapping its bill. But when other birds spot an owl, they will make a racket and swoop at it, trying to drive it away.
Not being very big – about 35 cm/14" in total length – wood owls feed on small prey, mostly insects, with occasional small birds, mammals, reptiles and frogs. They are able to catch flying insects like moths and winged termites in mid-flight. Otherwise they perch and swoop down on ground-dwelling prey, or even descend to the ground themselves and hop after earthbound prey like beetles. Like all owls, they have good sight but even better hearing, relying on sound to find prey on the darkest of nights. Wood owls don't move around much; an individual or couple will have a territory within which they remain for many years.
Wood owls form couples that remain together for life. They usually breed in holes or hollows in trees. Sometimes they will use the nests of other birds, even platform nests out in the open; they also very occasionally nest on the ground, typically at the base of a tree or in the shelter of a thicket. The female lays one to three eggs (mostly two) in late winter to spring. If there's more than one egg, there's usually an interval of about a day and a half between them. The female incubates them alone, starting as soon as the first egg has been laid. The chick/s hatch in spring or summer when insects are abundant; the younger chick/s are conspicuously smaller than the older one/s. At least the male now helps out with feeding the chicks; the parents bring them mostly insects, passed from bill to bill. The chicks beg with wheezing calls. They hatch out pink-skinned with sparse, white down; the down quickly thickens and soon the baby owls are like big, fluffy white balls. They soon get darker barring above and below. The owls fledge after a bit more than a month; at first they still have a lot of down on them. They look very scruffy when clothed in a mix of down and adult feathers. They remain somewhat lighter-coloured than the adults for some time. They stay with their parents for up to four months while they learn to hunt and take care of themselves.
These charming owls are still frequent and very widespread in Africa. Their ability to adapt to human-altered habitats bodes well for their future. Preying on insects and rodents, they are inoffensive at least, and at most, useful in keeping down the numbers of potential pests.
