Dear Mrs. Cuttatree,
My name is the Eastern Screech Owl ( Otus asio ), and I am writing you this letter to convince you to cancel the building of the Uppity Resort. I am mostly reddish – brown with some white and grey on my face and stomach and a little of my wings. I have big bright yellow eyes and a sharp and narrow beak. I am also a nocturnal bird and have really good night vision, 8 times better than a human, which I think is pretty cool. I am 18 to 23 cm tall and I weigh 125 to 250 grams. I also have a wingspan of 14.5 to 17.5 cm. I usually lay around 2 to 8 to 3 to 5 eggs in a clutch in our little tree cavity. If you cut down all those trees for the Uppity Resort, then I will have nowhere to go to lay my eggs and my species could be in trouble. In the winter, I do not migrate, though if the weather is severely bad, then I might move my home out of range in search of food. Like I said, I live in the cavities of trees and I have my eggs there as well. The forest doesn’t just provide me with shelter, it provides me with food. My typical diet involves microone rodents, deer mice, wood and Norway rats, chipmunks, cotton rats, squirrels shrews, bats, moles, larger insects, smaller songbirds, Northern Bobwhite, Rock Dove, Ruffed Grouse is just 7% of my diet! Other prey may include small fish, small snakes, small lizards, softshell turtles, small frogs, toads, salamanders, and invertebrates such as crayfish, snails, spiders, earthworms, scorpions, and centipedes. I also sometimes fish at small holes in the lake. If you build the Uppity Resort and kick me out, there will be a lot more mice and rodents that no one will like getting in their rooms. The place will be overrun by squirrels, and other rodents and reptiles. Even if i was able to stay, i wouldn’t be able to reproduce as fast because for a while, the animals will be scared away by the building process. So please Mrs. Cuttatree, please please reconsider building the Uppity Resort.
https://www.owlpages.com/owls/species.php?s=850
https://www.chattnaturecenter.org/visit/experience/wildlife/animal-facts/eastern-screech-owl/
