Chloe Miller, Silver Bay Elementary School
Ocean County
Long-eared owl. Ocean County. Chloe Miller
Long-Eared Owl
Hi! I'm the long-eared owl. You may also know me as Asio otus. I am one of the threatened birds in New Jersey; I live in the forest on the north-western part of New Jersey. You can see me and the rest of my family all year long. I eat small rodents and sometimes I eat birds. I fly low over open ground at night so that I can locate my prey by ear.
Once we become adults we have slender bodies with gray-brown feathers with a bold breast with vertical streaks. The females in our family are slightly larger than the males in our family. We have a rusty facial disk edged with black and gray. We also have a gray and black beak with yellow eyes.
I breed through mid March to May in North America. Our clutch sizes appear to be 3 to 8 eggs with an average of 4 to 5 eggs. I am about 13-16 inches long and our wingspan is 3-3 ½ ft. We weigh 8-16 ounces. The females in the family way more than the males.
I am almost gone because of habitat loss. A few reasons are because of the land development and forest thinning. One more reason is the conversion of softwood forests to hardwood forests.
One way you can help me is you can plant conifers near open areas. Or another way you could help me is to plant deciduous woodlots that will provide needed cover for us. One other way you could help us is you could help protect the marshlands and grasslands that important for maintaining a stable food source for us. I hope that everyone in the world can help us from becoming extinct. We would be very sad to no longer exist and we would like to stay here in the world a lot longer.
Written by: Chloe Miller
Silver Bay Elementary, Toms River
Teacher: Ms. Rhein