Owl banders are back with a quick update and some interesting owl adaptations. We are now at 362 Northern saw-whet owls this season, 9 Barred owls, and 4 Long-eared owls. Weather has been tricky this past week in the straits. We have had lots of rain and heavy winds so unfortunately we have been closed a lot.
This week we are going to discuss some of the adaptations that make owls, owls. Let’s start with their huge eyes! These eyes are so huge that they take up 5% of the bird’s total body weight. Having large eyes helps them to take in as much light as possible when they are hunting at night. Owls have 3D/binocular vision like us, but unlike us they have a nictitating membrane which is a translucent third eyelid that protects their eyes from debris when they are hunting.
Another well developed sense in owls is their hearing. An owl needs high quality hearing in order to locate prey scurrying about in the underbrush late at night. These ears are specialized in determining the location of a particular noise. A mechanism that helps many owls do this is asymmetrical placement of the ears on the owls skull (one ear is higher on the skull while the other is lower, rather than being directly across from one another like us). Using the slight difference in the time a sound arrives to each of the bird’s ears, they are able to accurately ascertain where a sound emanated from. The round formation of feathers around their face known as a facial disc helps out by directing sounds to the ears.
Lots of owls are hunting prey with hearing comparable to their own meaning that these predators have to be stealthy. In order to achieve stealthy flight the leading edge of the outermost flight feather has a serrated, comb-like fringe that dampens the sound of the wind flowing over their wings. Depending on what the owls prey preference is this comb will either be larger and more sound dampening or smaller and less sound dampening.
Thanks for tuning in this week! Stay tuned for next weeks blog where we will talk about about how we determine the age of an owl!
