Earth Almanac: September/October 2004

Whistling Goblin

On moonlit autumn nights look for the northern saw-whet owl—a tiny, bright-eyed goblin no heavier than a robin but puffier and wearing a perpetually startled expression on its round face. Now, frequently quartering against west winds, saw-whets drift south from northern and middle latitudes across the United States and Canada, roosting by day in low foliage. Fittingly, migration peaks around Halloween. The best way to find roosts is to search the ground under conifers for "whitewash" and regurgitated pellets of bones and fur. Usually, you can approach to within two or three feet of a roosting bird, and it won't flush. Instead, it will seem to melt into the tree trunk, elongating its body and folding one wing around itself. The saw-whet's name derives from its skiew alarm call, which sounds like a file being drawn across a saw blade. But the owl's more common vocalization is a monotonous whistle, heard during courtship and resembling the backup alarm on a dump truck. One of the few raptors that's known to cache food, the saw-whet may kill half a dozen deer mice in rapid succession, tuck them away in secure hiding places, and then, when times are lean, thaw the carcasses with its body heat, "brooding" them as if they were eggs.