I had no idea owls ate insects. I thought they all ate rodents.

I had no idea the variety of talons and prey among owls.  This explains why the Great Horned Owls hang out in and around our yard at night, as our area also attracts opossum, cats, raccoons, etc.

Great Horned Owls take house cats here in Alaska. Not safe to let house cats roam at night. I'm not really surprised, but I'm impressed that Snowy Owls can take ducks on the water, and the fishing owls are impressive too. Owls that can take monkeys are kind of intimidating!

I was most surprised to learn that owls that are similar in size can eat very different kinds of prey, and that you can tell what type of prey they eat by looking at their feet.

The wide range of the diet of the Great Horneds.  There is one chapter dedicated to the diet of this species in "The Owl Papers" by Jonathan Evan Maslow.  He quotes "the partial list of items in the Great Horned  Owl's diet"  by Dr. A. K. Fisher, "after dissecting some hundreds of owl stomaches, ...three species of rabbits, cotton rat, two species of pocket gofer, two species of wood rat, chipmunk, two species of grass hopper mice, white footed mouse, common rat, two species of ground squirrels, musk rat, fox squirrel, five species of meadow mice, house mouse, flying squirrel, common shrew, kangaroo rat, scorpions and crawfish." I also read the Great Horneds take down skunks..  How good is their sense of smell?? Another fascination point is the size of prey - I'm always amused by the optimistic and bold choice of prey of the pygmy owls - I read they take down prey larger than themselves (and sometimes lose...)

Fish owls surprise me, usually you would't think of an owl as a fish eating animal, but apparently they are! It also surprises me how some eat birds.

The part about owls eating birds is sorta sad. But, animals do what they must to survive.

I'm surprised owls can eat animals as large as wallabies! Does anyone know if owls ever eat snakes?

I found it fascinating about the different talons on the owls determine their diet. I didn’t know this. I assumed all owls eat rodents. I was amazed at the Eurasian Eagle owl’s talons.  I found out they can take down a small deer!  Truly amazing birds!  

I had no idea owls ate insects.

It is very interesting to know more about the relationship between the structure of an owl’s feet (e.g., toe alignment, size of toes & talons) and its preferred foods.