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The northern pygmy owl is one of those species that has eluded me so far, same with Williamson’s sapsucker. The Williamson’s of course will soon be called something else, dead White guys and all that 🙄

Pygmy owls are one of those birds you wouldn’t believe possible if it didn’t exist, a daytime predator sometimes taking birds larger than themselves. Here’s a photo of one with a starling it killed.



…..and a description from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website….

The male Northern Pygmy-Owl is alternatingly bold and surreptitious, often starting the day at the top of the tallest tree to broadcast his penetrating, monotonal song, before transitioning into a tiny forest ninja that moves clandestinely through the canopy and understory to strike unwary prey.

For all that they ain’t the top of their food chain and don’t live very long, compensated for by a high reproductive rate.

https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/nopowl/cur/introduction

As a small, diurnal forest species, the Northern Pygmy-Owl is vulnerable to attack from hawks, larger owls, and mammalian and reptilian nest predators. Its vulnerability is evident in the narrow, concealment posture it assumes when a hawk soars overhead or perches nearby. Females are particularly at risk. While laying, they are gravid, plump, and slow from over-eating, and are at risk of avian predators.

While incubating and brooding young their feathers become worn and broken, and they must maintain vigilance against predators like ermine that can climb trees and kill them in the nest cavity. Thus, after her young have departed the nest, it is the female that takes leave of her family group first to replenish herself, sometimes weeks before offspring independence and natal dispersal.