Owls
In Redwall
- Alignment: Good / Neutral / Evil
- Appearance: Owls look like owls in our world.
- Life Span: Many owls tend to live quite a long time, it seems - as
much as foxes or hares; perhaps even as long as badgers, though that's
doubtable.
- Diet: Owls eat mice, shrews, rats, and other smallish rodents.
- Typical Personality: Because of their meat-based diet, owls are
initially viewed of as evil in the Redwall books, though they often turn out
to be helpful. They're never fully good or fully evil - or at least
rarely so - normally staying aloof from groundwalker affairs. They are
known for being wise but are often cold and perhaps a bit savage as well.
Outside Redwall
- Classification: Nyctea scandiaca
- Other Names: Snowy owl
- Appearance: Snowy owls are nearly half a meter tall with a wingspan
of almost 1.5 meters. Females weigh around 2.3 kg, while males
weigh about 1.8 kg. Males can be almost pure white, while females are
usually darker (see picture). While many owls have ear-like tufts on
their heads, the snowy owl's tufts are barely visible.
- Life Span: The maximum for wild snowy owls is 9 years of life; owls
in captivity can live up to 14 years.
- Diet: Snowy owls commonly feed on lemmings, though they'll also eat
arctic hares, ptarmigan, or seabirds. When they migrate south for the
winter, they'll eat almost any small rodents - or larger rodents like hares
- and almost any birds they can get. Each owl must eat an equivalent
of 7 - 12 mice a day.
- Habitat: Owls commonly live in prairies, marshes, open fields, or
shorelines. They are normally solitary except during the breeding
season, where they will gather in pairs or sometimes even groups of up to 20
owls. Nests are little more than a shallow depression scraped in the
ground and lined with grass, feathers, and moss, often on snow-free areas
that have a wide view of the surrounding area.
- Typical Personality: Snowy owls are commonly shy and silent, unless
nesting. They are very territorial, however, and will even attack
intruding humans.
- Habits: Owls are not nocturnal nor diurnal - they can be active
night or day.
- Life Cycle: Clutches can be anywhere from 4 to 12 eggs, depending
on the availability of food. The female warms the eggs and broods the
young, while the male hunts for both mother and clutch. Chicks hatch
after 32 - 38 days of incubation and leave the nest before they can fly at 3
- 4 weeks. They are scattered around the nest on their own but still
fed by the parents. The chicks can fly at 7 - 8 weeks of age.
- Sites for Further Research: