Kenni the Owl: Kenni is a Western Screech Owl and is the grandson of the original KVIE owl featured on KVIE logo of the 1950s. The Western Screech Owl lives in a variety of places including, woodlands, forested stream sides, deserts, suburban areas, and parks. Kenni lives with his family in a nest box near a park. Some of the other owl families in his neighborhood nest in natural tree cavities and old Pileated Woodpecker or Northern Flicker holes—all great places for an owl to live. Nests can be from 5 to 30 feet off the ground. Kenni and his family are nocturnal, meaning they are active during the night and sometimes venture out on cloudy days.
When night falls, Kenni attends preschool at Hoots Academy where he is learning how to read, cooperate with others, and listen and follow instructions. He also likes song-time and sharing the song his grandfather taught him: a series of short, low pitched whistles that speed up towards the end
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For lunch, he likes to eat insect sandwiches, lizard cakes, and mice popsicles. There is no juice box for Kenni; when he does drink, which is just a little, it’s only water.
After school, Kenni likes to play with his friends, go to the library with his family, fly around local rivers and creeks for exercise, practice the alphabet and counting, and visit with other animals. One of his favorite games is called “What is this?” where he uses his magnifying glass to show his friends an object very-very close up and have them guess what it is. If you’d like to play this game with Kenni, click here!
When Kenni grows up, his plumage will become streaked gray or gray-brown (see what Kenni may look like as an adult owl). Owls like Kenni are not migratory, meaning when the seasons change he doesn’t move to a warmer neighborhood. Sometimes owls will travel to higher regions to avoid bad weather, such as a very strong and long-lasting storm. Most of Kenni’s relatives live in the Western United States, though some have lived as far north as Canada and as far south as Mexico.
10 Facts About Owls
There are two main categories of owls: Strigidae and Tytonidae. Only Barn Owls are in the Tytonidae family.
Owls have three sets of eyelids but have limited eyeball movement.
Owls have extraordinary vision and excellent hearing, which helps them hunt for food. Except the Great Horned Owl has no sense of smell at all.
An owl baby is called an owlet. Click here to see inside the home of a Barn Owl, live from Italy, on The Cornell Lab of Ornithology NestCam. If the box is empty today, be sure to visit the “view all daily highlights” link to see a variety of different and recent visitors to the nest box!
When eating, owls cannot chew their food. They must either swallow their food whole or break it up into smaller pieces—which is a good thing because they have no teeth!
Owls can be found living on every continent except Antarctica.
Male owls are usually smaller than female owls.
Popular media portray owls as synonymous with wisdom and intellect. This dates back to the Greek and Roman mythology where the goddess of wisdom (Pallas Athena) was represented by an owl.
There are 19 owl species in Northern California, the largest of which is the Great Gray Owl.
