:dubious:
But surely some of the squirrel roadkill I’ve seen was flattened by a Falcon?
But probably not recently!
May I add another question? Someone alleging to be an expert on owls and other birds of prey told me that owls never sleep. I don’t see how that can possibly be true. He claimed to have owned a number of these birds and that, while they may relax for a while, even close their eyes momentarily, that they never actually sleep. Anybody here know for sure?
I have nothing to add except owls are cool. I’ve worked with a few over the years. They may not be very bright but they always look like they are thinking intensely and can’t be bothered with anything else so maybe that’s where the “wise old owl” thing comes from? They always seem pretty laid back but if they want to warn you away they make themselves look big and clack their beaks at you. Other birds will puff themselves up to make themselves look bigger but owls are the only ones I can recall doing the beak clacking thing.
Ooh, a giant burrowing owl, how cute!
Pigeons cooden’t be that stupid…even the wooden ones, cood they?
I actually thought this was a trick question of some kind, so I asked my owl PI to be sure. He looked at me kinda funny before assuring me that owls do, in fact, sleep. I have no idea what makes your friend think they don’t, and it makes me wonder that he would believe this if he had any sort of long-term contact with them. This bit especially “may… even close their eyes momentarily”: I see them sleeping 'most all day, every day with eyes closed, heads tucked in, one foot pulled up for warmth.
Maybe your friend was thinking of the unihemispheric slow-wave sleep patterns of which ducks are capable? Or maybe it’s just that they woke up when they heard him coming and he just never saw them sleeping.
Of course owls sleep, just as all birds (hell, all vertebrates) do.
I think the association of owls with wisdom probably dates back at least to Greek myth, in which an owl was the associate/familiar/pet of Athena, who was IIRC the goddess of wisdom.
I had the pleasure of seeing a presentation by an owl wrangler and naturalist a few years ago. He made the same point as upthread, that owls are not as tubby as they appear with their feathers. To a layperson, an owl skeleton looks much like that of any other bird. He also said that owls are not terribly “intelligent” when compared to other birds such as ravens and crows, but are very well-adapted to predation and are often (as with GHOs) at the top of their local foodchains.
Bless you. That gave me my biggest laugh of the week.
“Do you have any cookies?”
I do what I can. It’s the little things.