BirdNote; Harry Potter's Owls

BirdNote®

The Owls of Harry Potter

This story aired in March 2011

By Frances Wood

This is BirdNote!

[Hedwig’s Theme from Harry Potter + Great Gray Owl]

If you’ve seen a Harry Potter film, you know that owls figure prominently. But like some jungle movies, the producers have taken a bit of license with the facts.

Harry’s owl, Hedwig, is a beautiful Snowy Owl. [Call of Snowy Owl] Although Hedwig is portrayed as a female, “she” is actually a pure white, male Snowy Owl. Female Snowies are dusky brown. True to life, though, Snowy Owls are awake and active during the day.

Harry’s friend Ron Weasley has an owl named Pigwidgeon [Scops Owl hooting] – a Scops-Owl, strictly a bird of Europe and Northern Africa.

[Scops Owl hooting]

Ron’s family has an owl, too – a Great Gray Owl. [Great Gray Owl call] But Great Gray Owls aren’t found in Great Britain.

The evil Draco Malfoy, Harry’s rival, has the biggest owl of all in England, the Eurasian Eagle-Owl. [Eurasian Eagle-Owl call] With sinister orange-red eyes, he makes a perfect pet for a villain [Eurasian Eagle-Owl].

Nearly all owls need trees, and there are ways you can save trees -- like buying your Harry Potter books from the Canadian publisher, Raincoast. This company prints on 100% post-consumer recycled paper. Find a link at BirdNote.org.

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Owl calls provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Snowy Owl recorded by S. Palmer. Eurasian Eagle-Owl recorded by M.D. Medler. Great Gray Owl recorded by L. J. Peyton.

Scops Owl recorded by Martyn Stewart, Naturesound productions.

Music: "Hedwig's Theme" by John Williams, from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, by J.K. Rowling, Warner Brothers, Inc.

Producer: John Kessler

Executive Producer: Chris Peterson

© 2011 Tune In to Nature.org March 2011 Narrator: Mary McCann

ID# 032906harryKPLU harrypotter-01b

Thanks to Laura Erickson of Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology for the suggestion that you buy your Harry Potter books from the Canadian publisher, Raincoast.