Kingdom Animalia
Class Aves
Order Strigiformes
Family Tytonidae
Subfamily Tytoninae
Genus Tyto

tyto alba
tuto, Greek, "night owl;" alba, Latin, "White."
White night owl.

Harvesting owl vomit can be a lucrative business.

Owls are ravenous eaters. They eat their prey whole or in large pieces — hair, bones, and all. Bones and hair cannot be digested and accumulate in the digestive tract. Unlike reptiles, which expel the non-nutritive parts of their prey in feces, owls spit it back up in clumps called owl pellets.

Open the dark clumps in any owl nest. They are full of bones, stripped of flesh, ready to assemble, like something out of a horror movie.

Frequently, a child's first school dissection is not a frog or a mink, but an owl pellet. Google "owl pellet": most of the links you get are scholastic. With good reason. Owl pellets are forensics, archaeology, and good old-fashioned bone play rolled into a convenient little ball.

Collect owl puke, disinfect it, package it, sell it to schools. Do something nice for the kids.

Barn owls exist on every continent except Antarctica. Their striking appearance has earned them a number of different names: golden owl, monkey-faced owl, sweetheart owl (not for its disposition — for its heart-shaped face). They tend to find homes near people, claiming nests in structures that don't see much activity. Like derelict barns.

Even as owls go, these things are spooky. They've flat white faces dotted with little black eyes, and no ear tufts. While most owls vocalize with a mournful hoot, barn owls screech and hiss. With their silent flight, unsettling faces, and hideous vocalizations, it's no wonder barn owls are the source of countless ghost stories.

The key to an owl's silent flight is in its feathers. The next time you find an owl feather, turn it on its side and look at the edge — the line of fibers is scalloped, like a stretched seam. The slight alteration in shape allows the feather to cut the air without making sound. That's aerodynamics, complex enough to warrant a university class or two. When they get old owls sluff them off like trash.

If barn owls seem like they stare, it's because they do. Their eyes are fixed forward; they don't have muscles to move them around in the sockets. Scanning is accomplished by turning the entire head. The ears are a lesson in strange science, too — they're asymmetrical. One is larger than the other and located higher on the head behind the facial disk, allowing better perception of distance.

Barn owls are ravenous hunters. Your average barn owl will consume 1.5 times its body weight in rodents each night. To match, yours truly would have to eat some 270 pounds: that's a lot of varmints. They're been known to take 60 prey in a single hunt. But the act of hunting itself is surprisingly, well, dorky. They swoop down, swing their legs around, and at striking they throw their heads back and close their eyes. An observer is likely to be reminded of either an orgasm or a nerd fight.

Barn owls are not long-lived creatures. On average, they spend about three or four years with us on our mortal coil. However, captive specimens have achieved much longer lives: one female was retired from breeding at 25 years of age. Barn owls are usually mature enough to breed a year after hatching. Breeding is a year-round affair, with two broods per year if the conditions are right. Males court by following females with dead rodents and chirping. Building a nest is not a meticulous affair: any flat, well-protected surface will suffice. Trees, buildings, burrows, farm equipment, you name it, barn owls have nested in it. Eggs incubate for about a month, brooded exclusively by the female.

Barn owlets are demanding. A little one reaching maturity may eat a dozen mice a night — whole, of course. Fledgling comes at about eight weeks of age. The feather coat changes gradually from white fluff-ball to the sleek ghost characterizing maturity.

Nest Box

So your property is overrun with rodents.

Many people prefer barn owls to traps and poison for rodent control. They're more effective and cost nothing. A good nest box will attract natural pest control.

An enclosed cat litter box works nicely. Attach a plywood plank to the top to act as a sunshade and a landing ramp in front of the opening. Punch holes in the bottom of roughly three-quarter inch diameter. Avoid mounting the box in an area subject to direct sunlight. Look for sturdy trees. Optimally, a nest box should be at least 12 feet off the ground in an area with little human traffic. For bedding, use tree bark or pine needles — straw and hay support the growth of harmful fungus. Gradually the bottom of the box will be lined with regurgitated hair and bone. There's no need to clean it out. The ammoniatic smell keeps ants and other bugs away.

You could also use barrels (not steel, which overheats) or build a box yourself from scratch lumber. A litterbox hanging in a tree is unattractive.