Each time you use the hashtag #Hoot2Give on Twitter, Craig will donate $1 to National Wildlife Federation (up to $5,000) to support our efforts to help owls and other wildlife.

So join us in having a bit of fun appreciating owls. Tweet your favorite photos or videos, share stories, articles or your best owl pun, and help honor owls this holiday season.

Craig tweeted his own kickoff to the fundraiser:

If you #hoot2give, I’ll give $1 to @nwf this holiday season: bit.ly/W0S0zg

— craignewmark (@craignewmark) December 13, 2012

Here are just a few fun owl photos and facts that are ready-made to tweet!

1. A snowy owl will attack any predators, including wolves, that threaten its ground nest.

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Snowy Owl Photo by Marcia Bromley

2. Burrowing owls collect mammal waste to attract dung beetles, one of their favorite foods.

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Burrowing Owl Photo by Bill Dodsworth

3. A Northern saw-whet is named for one of its calls that sounds like a saw being whetted.

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Northern Saw-whet Photo by John Kirchner

4. Barred owls have a call that sounds like, “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you allll?”
(Listen and watch one here>>)

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Barred Owl Photo by Amy Marques

5. Snowy owls have lots of names: ghost owls, tundra ghosts, Arctic owls and great white owls.

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Snowy Owl Photo by Kevin McCarthy

6. Barn owls will swallow their prey whole and locate their prey on sound alone.

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Barn Owl Photo by Marie Aufderheide

7. Burrowing owls will sometimes use abandoned burrows of prairie dogs, armadillos, skunks or pocket gophers.

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Burrowing Owl Photo by Amy Marques

8.  A group of owls is called a parliament.

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Great Horned Owlets by Lois Settlemeyer

9. Owls are silent fliers and nocturnal hunters making them very effective predators.

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Barred Owl by Laura Kalina

10. Great grey owls are very reclusive. Plunge marks in the snow are usually the only evidence for its presence.

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Great Grey Owl by Kameron Perensovich

A burrowing owl stretches near its den after a storm

 
Photo by Flickr member Moments In Nature by Joshua Clark
See more of Moments In Nature by Joshua Clark’s photos on Flickr >>

Your Photo Could Be Here

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A parent burrowing owl feeds an insect to its owlet

Photo by Flickr member East Wind

See more of East Wind’s photos on Flickr >>

Your Photo Could Be Here

We want one of your nature photos to be the next Photo of the Day! Share your images with our Flickr group and tag them with PhotoOfTheDay-NWF12.

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Burrowing Owl

Photo by Flickr member East Wind

See more of East Wind’s photos on Flickr>>

Your Photo Could Be Here

We want one of your nature photos to be the next Photo of the Day! Share your images with our Flickr group and tag them with PhotoOfTheDay-NWF12.

Don’t have a Flickr account? It’s free and easy to create one.

For now, I’d like to accentuate the positive. NWF has been working hard to make sure wildlife is represented  - read our 2012 Farm Bill priorities to learn more. We were pleased that one of our priorities – protection for native grasslands through a Sodsaver provision – was included in the Senate Agriculture Committee’s bill. I have written before about Sodsaver, a provision that will limit federal subsidies on native grassland converted into cropland.

Native grassland is an extremely valuable and under-appreciated biome in the US. I grew up a stone’s throw away from the Appalachians, and I remember clearly the first time I drove across the plains states. I had never seen the horizon so far away before, and the land stretching out flat, or slightly rolling until it met the sky. I have only recently started to learn how many amazing plants and animals live in the grasslands – like prairie chickens and Sandhill cranes.

5 Grassland Species

Here are 5 species that can thank the Senate Agriculture Committee for protecting their homes by including a Sodsaver provision – how many of these species did you already know? How many more can you name?

Black-footed ferret. Photo by Ryan Hagerty for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Prairie kingsnake. Photo: Illinois Department of Natural Resources

Snakes are key predators and an important part of prairie ecosystems. Prairie kingsnakes are common grassland snakes that come in a variety of shades of grey to brown. They are non-venomous and they don’t usually bite, but they shake their tales if they feel threatened.

Pronghorn antelopes. Photo: US Fish and Wildlife Service

Regal fritillary butterfly. Photo: flickr, Bill Bouton

Butterflies that depend on prairie habitat are in decline, in Europe as well as the US. Many insects, including important pollinators, depend on grasslands to survive.

Burrowing owl family. Photo: flickr, Annette’s photography

 Burrowing owls, like prairie dogs and ferrets, live in underground burrows (hence the name). Burrowing owls are also unique because they are often active during the day.

Did you already know these animals?  Can you think of any more?  If so, send us a comment through the feature below!

Mockingjay vs. Mockingbird

The Story of the Mockingjay

In Suzanne Collins’ book, The Hunger Games, the mockingjay bird is the evolutionary result of a failed government breeding experiment. The evil government of Panem first created the jabberjay to spy on enemies and rebels of the Capitol, as they could memorize and repeat entire human conversations. However, once the rebels realized their conversations were being transmitted, they used the jabberjays against the Capitol, sending back false information. The government then abandoned the birds to die off in the wild.

But, in an example of extraordinary wildlife almost never doing what we expect, male jabberjays bred with female mockingbirds, giving birth to the mockingjay, which could repeat both human melodies and birdsong and were thus better able to protect themselves (and the rebels of Panem) in the wild. The inability of the government to control these animals made them an inspiration and a symbol for the rebel cause.

Though the mockingjay is not a real species, the fascinating trait of mimicry is very real in the wild, as seen in the mockingbird and other animals.

The Breakdown: Mockingbird vs. Mockingjay

• Mockingjay - Fictional – It can repeat both human melodies and birdsong and plays a symbolic and thematic role in The Hunger Games.
• Mockingbird - Real – It can mimic a variety of noises such as car alarms, cats, crickets, etc.

There are about 17 species of mockingbirds around the world. Northern mockingbirds are the only species commonly found in North America. Their Latin name, Mimus polyglottos, means “many-tongued mimic,” because rather than singing their own songs, northern mockingbirds learn and repeat the songs of other species. An individual can learn up to 200 songs during its lifetime.

Both males and females sing, but males are louder and active more often throughout the year than females. Unpaired males sing 24 hours a day during the breeding season. Once a male has courted a mate by elaborately displaying his flight and singing capabilities, the pair may stay in a monogamous mating relationship over many breeding seasons, or else one male may mate with many females.

“You name it–other bird calls, sirens, bells, frogs, crickets, squirrels, a home alarm, rusty gate, the whirring and squeaks of a washing machine–and this extrovert of lawns and hedges will imitate the sound with grace and skill.” – excerpt from “Listen to the Mockingbird” in National Wildlife magazine.

But Wait, There’s More… 

There are many other birds that use mimicry,  such as burrowing owlets who mimic the sound of rattlesnakes to ward off potential predators. One of our favorites is the the lyre bird, who will shock and enthrall you (almost as much as The Hunger Games) with the variety of sounds they can mimic (chainsaws, cameras and more).

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Northern mockingbird is just one of 45 extra-ordinary wildlife species we’re celebrating during the 2012 National Wildlife Week. Find out more >>

What do California’s Western Burrowing Owl, Montana’s Trumpeter Swan, and Florida’s River Otter have in common?   They’re all being conserved thanks to the State and Tribal Wildlife Grants Program! 

Burrowing owls, photo- Rob Palmer

It may be Endangered Species Day- a day to celebrate the successes of the Endangered Species Act- however it’s important to remember that the Endangered Species Act is just one of many conservation programs working to preserve our wildlife heritage.  The Endangered Species Act protects some of our rarest wildlife facing the greatest risk of extinction, however it depends upon other conservation programs that keep wildlife from getting to this dangerous point.

In every state across the nation, the State and Tribal Wildlife Grants Program works to “keep common species common” or prevent species from becoming endangered or threatened.   States use grants to conserve wildlife populations that are starting to decline and restore or expand key wildlife habitat.  However, that’s not all- when states need extra help conserving endangered species, the State and Tribal Wildlife Grants Program is there.  Grants are helping the humpback whale and successfully helped the bald eagle along its road to recovery.

The Endangered Species Act and the State and Tribal Wildlife Grants Program work together to keep our wildlife from becoming extinct.  However, it’s hard for these programs to be successful if they don’t receive sufficient funding. 

>>TAKE ACTION: Help Wildlife this Endangered Species Day!! 

Tell Congress to provide robust funding for endangered species and the State and Tribal Wildlife Grants Program.

Dave will be corralling some cute animals onstage, including a burrowing owl, Arctic fox, Canada lynx and a two-month-old baby spider monkey.

Burrowing Owls live in North, Central and South America. They can be found in the desert southwest and western grasslands in the U.S. northward into Canada, as well as a population in Florida. Ground-dwelling owls that use burrows for safety and to lay their eggs.

They live in open country with sparse vegetation that allows good view of landscape. The owls are only about 10″ tall and only weigh 6 or 7 ounces. They eat large insects such as beetles and grasshoppers, as well as small mammals (mice, rats, gophers, ground squirrels, young rabbits, bats). Other prey includes reptiles and amphibians, scorpions, and smaller birds.

Arctic Foxes live in the Arctic tundra. They have a white coat in winter which is shed in spring to a gray-black-brown coat in summer, keeping them camouflaged in all seasons. Their winter coat is extremely insulating and keeps fox warm. They also have tiny ears, a short muzzle and limbs that help them live in the Arctic (less surface area for heat to escape), as well as hairy foot pads for insulation and grip on snow and ice.

Foxes only weigh about 10 lbs. (about the weight of house cat).

They are monogamous–a fox pair digs a den where the female has 4-10 kits each year. Some dens have been used for hundreds generations over the centuries. They live usually only 4 years, but in captivity live longer (10-12 years).

Canada Lynx are found in the boreal forest in Canada and the northern U.S. (upper New England, upstate NY, upper Great Lakes region, Northern Rockies/Yellowstone, Northern Cascades and Alaska). They weigh between 20-30 lbs.

They are similar to the more widespread bobcat, but are taller, have larger feet, grayer fur and tufts of fur on its ears. The other way to tell them apart is that bobcats have striped tails but lynx just have a black tip.

These cats are adapted for living in snow. They have large feet act as snowshoes and pads are covered in fur for insulation.

Their primary prey is the snowshoe hare, but they also feed on other small mammals like red squirrels and birds such as grouse and even sometimes deer.

They are a threatened species in the U.S. due to habitat loss and fragmentation (logging of boreal forest), hunting and trapping and getting hit by cars.

Black-Handed Spider Monkeys live in tropical forests from southern Mexico and throughout Central America. They are highly arboreal and spend most of their time high up in tree canopy, rarely coming to the ground. Spider monkeys move through the trees by jumping and swinging from braches using their long arms and prehensile tails (which act as a fifth limb and for balance). Their fingers are almost like hooks to catch the branches.

They live in loose social groups of 20-30 individuals, but forage in smaller groups groups of 5-6 individuals. The groups are led by dominant females who decide where to forage. They eat primarily fruits, but will also eat nuts, young leaves, bark, honey, insects and bird eggs if fruit isn’t available.

These monkeys “bark” when threatened and often throw branches, jump up and down and shake tree limbs when approached by humans.

Spider monkeys are endangered species, threatened by the destruction of tropical forests and hunting.

Find out what you can do to celebrate getting outside with your family and enjoying nature and wildlife. National Wildlife Week is your chance to Be Out There™!