Stripey the Great Horned Owl eating grapes and snow

Excerpts from Max Terman's private video of Stripey the Great Horned Owl mainly to show this owl apparently eating grapes in the wild. No one threw her the bunch -- she found them for herself. This backs up my own experience of young captive Tawny Owls showing a liking for some types of fruit, and other evidence that they eat leaves in the wild. Stripey, who was found as a fallen chick in Hillsboro, Kansas, in 1988, was released the same year, and was last known to be alive in about 2006. I've included some clips of Dr Terman visiting Stripey on her nest as these are quite remarkable. (Reproduced by kind permission of Dr Max Terman, who owns the copyright on this video. KAKE 10 is a TV broadcaster based in Wichita, KS)

This clip can now be compared with another clip from my channel of a Tawny Owl eating oak leaves. See www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiKJVD-buiU

The book mentioned in the video is "Messages from an Owl" (248 pp.) by Dr Terman and published by Princeton University Press in 1997. It's one of the best books about an individual owl there is, and almost certainly the most informative about a wild owl.
Postscript: Max says that Messages may soon be available as an eBook.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• stripey
• great
• horned
• messages
• from
• an
• owl
• max
• terman
• fruit
• grapes
• snow
• nest

[MonteenMcCord]

I feed my 21 year old GHO natural prey items, NOT grapes.

[romillyh]

@MonteenMcCord Of course you do. This is a WILD owl that was found eating grapes it had found and chosen to eat itself. This video is part of other evidence on my channel and website that at least some owls include vegetable matter in their diet.

[TonyInTopeka]

That is so cool! I've always loved owls.

[Mazryonh]

Why on earth would owls eat fruits (or oak leaves for that matter)? Is it roughage to keep their stomachs clean? I thought the pellets they puked up would do that kind of job.