In the Harry Potter books, owls are used to deliver messages to other people (I guess wizards don't have e-mail), much like pigeons used to do in the "Muggle" (non-magical, for those of you not familiar with Harry Potter) world. There are many different types of owls in the world. Harry Potter lives in Britain, so you would think the owls would be British owls, but that's not always so. Four owls in particular are mentioned in the books -- three belong to three of the main characters. The fourth is just an owl that lives at the school.
Let's start with Harry's Owl, Hedwig. Hedwig is a Snowy Owl. Snowy Owls are not, as Harry's friend, Hermione, once pointed out, native to Britain, though they can be found in other parts of Europe and in North America. I must admit that this owl was always one of my favorites, even before I read the books, though I have yet to see one in the wild. The Snowy Owl is twenty-four inches in height (two inches more than Great Horned Owls) and is white with yellow eyes and varying amounts of black barring. The more black, the younger it is and the more likely it's a female. Hedwig, being female, probably has a moderate amount of dark barring.
If you look for Snowy Owls in Virginia, you will probably be going on a "wild owl chase," as they are rarely seen here. The Snowy Owl lives in very cold climates. It is usually found in extreme northern Canada, Alaska, Europe, and Green-land, though in the winter it sometimes gets as far south as the northern United States, Scandinavia and Siberia. Snowys are not normally seen in Britain or farther south than New York in the U.S. Snowy Owls primarily eat lemmings -- a very small rodent similar to a chipmunk, though about as big as a guinea pig. Where the owl can be seen in the winter depends on the lemmings. If there are a lot of lemmings, Snowys won't migrate very far. However, if the lemming population really crashes (goes down a lot), Snowys have shown up at least as far south as Virginia in the East and Nevada in the West.
Let's look at Harry's friend Ron's new (as of the end of the third book) owl, Pigwidgeon. The species name of this owl is never given, but it is described as extremely small, gray, and weak-flying. It was given to Ron by Harry's godfather while he was in hiding, so the owl could have come from anywhere. My guess is that Ron's owl is an Elf Owl. Elf Owls are grayish but not all over. They live only in the southwestern US and Mexico (Remember Harry's godfather was in hiding - could he have been hiding there?) and are only six inches high. They make a variety of sounds, much like Pigwidgeon.
The owl described in the fourth book as simply being a Hogwart's owl was the Barn Owl. This was the first owl Harry used when he couldn't use Hedwig. The Barn Owl is the only one of these four owls regularly seen in England, though it is also found throughout western Europe, most of Africa and the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, Australia, Micronesia (a large island chain in the south Pacific), and from the U.S. South all the way to the southern tip of South America. Barn Owls are among the most widespread owls around the world and also one of the most unusual-looking. They have white heart-shaped faces, are medium-sized (eighteen inches high, three inches shorter than a Barred Owl) and do nest in barns and other man-made structures. The only Barn Owl I ever saw was roosting in an unused grain silo not far from Richmond. There were small scattered bones near by, presumably field mice and voles that lived on the farm.
Finally, we get to the owl of Harry's hated classmate, Draco Malfoy. Its species is named once. (He has it with him while he is making fun of Ron's owl). It's an Eagle Owl, which in many ways in like our Great Horned Owl. It has similar ear tufts and looks very much like the Great Horned Owl but lacks its white "bib" and is larger (23 - 28 inches compared to "only" 22 inches for the Great Horned Owl). The eyes of an Eagle Owl are dark yellow and sometimes appear to be orange or even red. The Eurasian Eagle Owl lives throughout northern and eastern Europe and down around the Mediterranean and parts of Asia, though not in Britain or much of western Europe.
Sun Jan 20, 2008 2:42 am
