A Very Special Great Horned Owl

By Dan Weisz

All photos by Dan Weisz

This spring I was able to visit a very special Great Horned Owl at a friend’s house. The Owl is leucistic, meaning it has a loss of pigment in its feathers so it appears a ghostly white color. It is not albino, which would have no melanin or color at all. You can see gray in this Owl's feathers and yellow in its eye. Leucism is pronounced two different ways, “Luke-ism” or “Loose-ism”.

Besides the lack of colors in his feathers, this male owl is otherwise a very healthy bird. He is at least three years old as he has paired with a normal looking female for two springs in a row to successfully raise chicks. As owls do, this bird napped often during the day.

Normally, Great Horned Owls in southern Arizona have a mottled gray/brown feather plumage. Leucism can effect just one feather or more. Obviously, this bird has little pigment on his entire body other than some gray on many of the feathers.

Perched on a eucalyptus tree which has white bark, this leucistic Owl blends right in. Those feather tufts on his head are huge. Those are the feathers that give this species its name “Great Horned” Owl. Those feather tufts, called plumicorns, are not really horns. Some people call them ear tufts but those feathers have nothing to do with its ears or its hearing. They are mostly decorative, but when raised while the bird is perched on a tree during the day, they break up the bird’s silhouette helping it to hide in the tree shadows a bit more.

I was able to visit this bird over a several week period during this year and these photos were taken over those weeks. This owl’s partner was often in the same tree and the owls kept a close watch on their nest across the yard in a giant Aleppo Pine tree. For a Birdnote piece on nesting Great Horned Owls, go to birdnote.org/listen/shows/great-horned-owls-nest.

More than two weeks later, the leucistic Great Horned Owl was still there, doing his job to oversee his young on the nest. Due to the rarity of this kind of plumage, I did not want to post the photos while the birds were nesting so that they would have privacy during that time. I am still keeping the bird’s location to myself. The homeowner does not want undue traffic to her neighborhood and the pressure on the owl from numerous onlookers could only have negative consequences.

Leucism in birds is rare but relatively more common than albinism. Based on info from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Feederwatch Program, only 236 of the 5.5 million birds reported each year had leucism or albinism, making up a tiny proportion of birds with abnormal plumages. In other words, only about 1 bird in 30,000 has leucistic or albinistic plumage.

I usually observed this owl in the afternoon and was often shooting “into the sun”. One afternoon the owl was grooming itself. I liked seeing the owl hidden behind a curtain of wing feathers. The owl was stretching and, as it stretched its right wing, it also stretched its right leg. You can see the shadow of one foot’s four toes and talons spotlighted in the sunlight against the wing feathers.

Sometimes it was just resting. Then at other times it was very alert while watching the nest across the yard. By now the two young owlets in the nest were beginning to flap their wings and venture to the edge of the nest. Great Horned Owls do not build nests. They “repurpose” the nest of other large birds (i.e., Cooper’s Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk, Harris’s Hawk, Common Raven) or just find a suitable flat surface to lay their eggs on. Because they nest so early in the season before other birds do, the other birds' old nests from the previous year are not being used at the time the owls need it.

Owls are curious birds. They have huge eyes and we humans can get lost in those eyes. Owls depend very much on sharp vision to catch their prey. Their eyes are large, their pupils dilate widely, and they have many rods (which detect light and movement) and cones (which distinguish color) in their eyes. A Great Horned Owl’s eyes are not really “eyeballs”. They are tube shaped and completely immobile. This provides for great binocular vision which helps to boost depth perception. For some fun facts about owls, go to audubon.org/news/13-fun-facts-about-owls

The Great Horned Owl was preening one afternoon. While it closed its eyes for this activity, it certainly appeared to be happy or pleased with itself. However, that was just me reacting to the image. For the owl, I’m sure it was just doing its job of self-care and nothing more.

Often, the owl would also perch in the middle of a giant cypress tree a few houses from the nest tree. From there, it could keep a close watch on the nest. Once the baby birds fledged from the nest, they remained near both the nest tree and this cypress roosting tree. This photo was taken at the end of May. By now, the Great Horned Owl’s little ones have learned to hunt for themselves. I imagine that this owl and its mate are now getting ready for the upcoming breeding season.

Two weeks after the last photo, I saw the owl for the final time. I hope it had a good year raising its young and wish it a great 2023. 

Leucistic birds have a tougher time in the wild. Their feathers are more brittle than normal feathers. Being almost white makes it less able to remain hidden during the day so they are at greater risk of predation. Still, this Great Horned Owl seems to be beating the odds. If the old Cooper’s Nest in the big Aleppo pine is still in good shape after all these years, the owls may return. If not, they may find another location to nest in. I feel very fortunate to have been able to observe it and am very grateful to the kindness of its ‘human landlord’ for sharing this bird with me. 

Dan Weisz is a native Tucsonan and retired educator who enjoys birding, being in nature, and taking photographs.