Elf Owl

Micrathene whitneyi

Compiled by Niyati Acharya

The Elf Owl is an insectivorous species of the arid habitat.  It breeds in the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts, nesting in cavities in saguaro cacti and telephone poles, and up into adjacent canyons with oaks and sycamores.  They can often be seen emerging from these at dusk.  The call is often described as a high-pitched chuckle or similar to the sound of a small dog barking.

The Elf Owl is most famously known for being the world’s smallest raptor, about the size of a sparrow and weighing around 1.4 oz or 40 g. The owl stands only fourteen centimeters tall.  Its scientific name, Micrathene, means “the little owl” in Greek. 

These birds are found in Mexico and range just north of the border in Arizona, New Mexico, California, and Texas during the breeding season.  The species occupies a diverse range of habitats in the US, including canyon forests, riparian areas, and places where columnar cacti are abundant.  Elf Owls are cavity nesters, using holes left behind by woodpeckers and other species that create natural cavities.  They are most active at dusk and dawn, when they hunt insects and other invertebrates.  They are also active throughout the night. 

Elf Owls prey almost exclusively on arthropods like scorpions, moths, crickets, beetles, and spiders. Surviving in the desert, they get their water supply from the prey they feed upon.  They hunt scorpions, removing the stinger before eating.   They rarely eat small mammals and reptiles.  They are neotropical migrants.  They winter in central Mexico and return to West Texas and other parts of the Southwest to nest and raise their young.

Elf Owls do not have “ear tufts” or feathers on the top of their rounded heads.  Their feathers are grayish-brown in color.  Their eyes are pale yellow and are highlighted by thin white “eyebrows”.  The bill is gray with a horn-colored tip.

Elf Owls, like other owls, have excellent night vision. They can’t see in complete darkness, but they can see well in low light.  They also have excellent hearing.  They catch their prey in complete darkness by pinpointing it using their ears rather than their eyes.

Elf owls have “silent flight”, which means they don’t make any noise as they approach their prey.  The sound of their wing beat is muffled by softened feathers on the leading edges of their wings.  Their predators include other owls, snakes, coyotes, bobcats, and ringtails.   Most predators find it difficult to access the owls’ nests high up in a saguaro.

In Texas, Elf Owls are found in the arid Big Bend and Trans-Pecos areas of the lower Chihuahuan Desert.  In the lower Chihuahuan desert, they are dependent on ladder-backed woodpeckers, Picoides scalaris, for nest sites.  They build their nests in abandoned woodpecker holes.  Since trees are scarce, woodpeckers use fence posts, yucca stalks, dead tree limbs, and power poles as nest sites.  But as more electric lines are placed underground, significant loss of power pole nest sites could impact the breeding population of elf owls as well as other cavity nesters.  Elf Owl populations in the United States have dropped drastically as desert areas have been developed for homes and agriculture.

Sources include: Hawkwatch.org, owlresearchinstitute.org, desertmuseum.org, Texasparks&Wildlife

Photo credit:  Allaboutbirds.org, lifescience