The Eastern Screech-Owl is the little owl hiding in plain sight — a robin-sized, ear-tufted bundle of camouflage that roosts in tree cavities across Michigan neighborhoods, its mottled gray (or rufous-red) plumage vanishing against bark. Most people have lived within a block of one and never known it.
Despite the name, screech-owls don't screech: the common calls are an eerie descending whinny, like a tiny ghost horse, and a soft one-pitch trill. They hunt at night from low perches and readily adopt nest boxes — a screech-owl sunning in a box entrance on a winter afternoon is one of the backyard birder's finest rewards.
A miniature generalist: large insects, earthworms, mice, small birds, frogs — even crayfish and the occasional fish. Prey is swallowed whole where possible, the leftovers cast up later as pellets.
An Eastern Screech-Owl — the descending, tremulous whinny is its signature. Listen at dusk in any older neighborhood with big trees; they're far more common than people realize.
Two color morphs occur in the same population — gray predominates in Michigan, with roughly one in three birds rufous. It's genetic, unrelated to age or sex.
Readily — a box with a 3-inch hole mounted 10–15 feet up on a large tree works for both nesting and winter roosting. Face it toward an opening and add wood shavings.
Yes, in any month. Numbers stay fairly steady from month to month. Winter is often the easiest time to find them, with bare branches, open sightlines, and snow cover concentrating birds at reliable food.
No — gray and rufous are permanent color morphs, and both occur in Michigan with gray more common in the north. Owlets of either morph are downy white with faint barring before their adult color shows.
Other birds you might be looking at instead.
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