Great job helping the guy out. Bare handing it out of there is a brave choice, those tslons are no joke. I would have gone with some work gloves.

brand new sentence!

seriously though, i find this article pretty interesting. so much information and context gleaned from 2000 year old frog bones.

I haven't been on the receiving end of talons...yet...

Bitten by multiple grey squirrels, a flying squirrel, our pigeon and parakeet ambassadors, and a Screech owl so far, and a young Red-tailed Hawk swooped at me, but just to get my attention, but no talon jabs! (Flying squirrel by far hurt the worst, I'd say.)

Understandable. I wouldn't risk an owl's scorn either xD I mean, these talons look like they really hurt.

I love the apparent sassiness of owls. They keep me in my place! 😄

I do wonder what they think about. I try to trick the owls into thinking I've gone away by hiding behind the wall of the aviary and peeping through the cracks, trying not to make any noise, but I'm pretty sure they can still see me and even hear me breath and just moving my foot to stay balanced. They stare at where I am and move their heads around to really tune in on the sounds I make without even noticing. But now and then, they will stop and just look off somewhere else for a bit.

They're scared of us and don't want to be around us. I imagine it's like if we were in the water with a shark swimming around. With me being purposefully sneaky, I would think that would make them even a bit more suspicious of me. I'm not sure what would make me look away from a shady shark swimming around me, but it would have to be something pretty intriguing. They go back to staring at the space I'm occupying, so it's not like they've forgotten I'm there....

After reading the owl sleep study and seeing they are only really active in the imaginative/creative center of their brain maybe 2-5% of the total time they are asleep, perhaps they are just more prone to daydreams so they can work those more obscure parts of their mind while they're still awake and alert?

I sure do spend a lot of time thinking about these birds! 🤪

We listen and we judge.
Look at my face. This is all we do. Always. Wanna know why we are associated with wisdom? Athena? Never heard of her. No. Because. We. Judge. happy hoot hoot

I like that shot a lot. She's contemplating life.

Same owl, same.

I could talk owls all day!

I'm glad you found it helpful! 🦉

Thank you for such a thorough answer!

Light rain isn't too bad, but it's going to cut down on their efficiency and how much prey they can carry. If they get drenched, they won't be going much of anywhere until they dry and preen. Here's a wet/dry of the same owl:

Even the owls that primarily feed on fish don't submerge themselves and don't even like getting their feet wet for the most part.

Owl feathers don't have the feather barbs packed nearly as densely as most birds. If you hold an owl feather up to light next to another type of bird's feather, the owl feather is very transparent (and extra soft!) compared to say, a duck or hawk feathery. This lets air pass through, making flight quieter at the cost of efficiency (owls are pretty slow fliers and also mostly glide to hunt, making them even more silent), but those gaps really hinder their water resistance. The water will fill in those gaps meant for the air and get stuck in there. Flapping will shake some out, but if everything is just plain saturated, the barbs will all be too heavy with that water clinging on.

I need to just take a better pic myself to highlight the differences, but for now, here are some Short Eared Owl feathers and then a SEO flying in some fairly direct light. You can see the openness of the feathers letting the light through, and if it were raining, all that would be sponging up water.

Does that mean they also can't hunt as effectively while they're wet?

"don't talk to me until I've had my coffee" owl.

I like the subtle yellows of the eyes and beak.

That's the tradeoff to those stealthy feathers. The holes that let the air pass through the feathers to keep them quiet also lets the water right in.

Nice guy. Nice colours.

Monday morning owl

Poor guy, but also beautiful colours :3