Finding Food in the Dark: teacher key

Great Horned Owls, grade 6 edition, written for 6th grade. A great horned owl hunts mostly at night with keen hearing and keen vision in low light. See how it hunts, what it eats, where it nests and how it grows up.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. What does a great horned owl have in low light?
   • Keen hearing and keen vision (answer)
   • Poor sight
   • No sight
2. What lets an owl fly down silently?
   • Wet feathers
   • Special flight feathers (answer)
   • Loud hoots
3. What does an owl do with the bones and fur it cannot digest?
   • It builds a nest
   • It hides them
   • It coughs up pellets (answer)
4. At about what age can young great horned owls fly well?
   • 9 to 10 weeks old (answer)
   • 2 years old
   • 1 week old
5. How long may a great horned owl in captivity live?
   • About 2 years
   • More than 20 years (answer)
   • Exactly 5 years
6. A pair of great horned owls stays in its territory all year. What does that tell you?
   • They do not regularly leave it (answer)
   • They travel far every winter
   • They live only in cities

Words

• sockets: eye holes
• perch: a high seat
• prey: hunted animals
• pellets: small lumps
• territory: claimed area
• captivity: life with people