Pygmy owl
Glaucidium gnoma
L 6″ W 15″
Habitat: The pygmy owl is found in most of the western wooded areas from western Canada into Mexico. It is probably most abundant in open coniferous or mixed forests and is reported specifically in ponderosa pine, mixed conifer, and fir-redwood-cedar forests.
Nest: This owl usually nests in old woodpecker holes ranging in size from those constructed by hairy woodpeckers up to and including those of the flickers from 8 to 75 feet above ground (Bent 1938).
Food: Mice and large insects are probably the most common prey of the pygmy owl, although other small mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles have been reported (Bent 1938). Brock (1958) found one vole, a deer mouse, and a Jerusalem cricket in the stomach of one bird and reported seeing another pygmy owl take a Nuttall’s woodpecker. We observed one pygmy owl in Arizona carrying a small vole. They have also been observed taking mice in the mountains west of Denver, and taking birds in the vicinity of feeders in Boulder, Colorado (Richard Pillmore pers. comm.[6]).