True facts about owls

April 10, 2014 • 2:45 pm

True facts about owls and some fascinating footage of these beautiful birds in this video made by Ze Frank.

 

And don’t miss the image at the very end!

 

 

There are a lot more links to owl videos and owl information if you click through to the Youtube page.

 

 

h/t Gregory James

21 thoughts on “True facts about owls”

  1. “Owlettes are born without flight feathers and because they are vulnerable, they camouflage themselves as Muppets.”

    Gold.

  3. The entire series of “true facts about” videos narrated by ZeFrank are worth watching multiple times. The blend of cool facts, snark and humor is marvelous. I suspect that interest in zoology would be be greatly enhanced if these videos were shown to young students.

      1. These are great – just a reminder though… the word press site embeds videos when you copy the url in like that. Check da roolz – there’s instructions there about how to do it the right way. (ze frank’s latest – the octopus)

        1. The problem is I post a comment so infrequently I always forget that WordPress is annoyingly helpful. I expect any text I type to be treated as-is unless I add the <a href=””> tag. Add the fact that there isn’t a preview option before I commit the comment and mistakes are guaranteed. If Dr. Coyne can’t configure the software to suit his preferences I suggest he switch to a different platform. And I say that as a software engineer for 30+ years who is frequently annoyed by stupid user interfaces and wonder why my profession can’t do better.

          1. I hear you, Kurtis – being an IT geek myself with similar years under my belt. I haven’t spent much time on it, but have looked at WordPress settings for various things, including this issue – just in case I was able to help Jerry out in this regard… and came up with a blank within the WP interface. (then got too busy) I share your pain. I haven’t found a quick fix.

            Anyway, am guessing here, but think a platform switch in the short term is likely out of the question, considering the mountain of posts/threads that would be good to migrate and/or the time/energy involved. But as George Harrison said: “All Things Must Pass”.

            So it’s on my back burner of things to investigate, esp. as more and more people I know are setting up their own WordPress sites – so it will help me to know more about this stuff as well. Not looking forward to it, though.

          2. Anyway, am guessing here, but think a platform switch in the short term is likely out of the question…

            That is certainly true and I didn’t mean to imply that changing platforms was a viable option. I was trying to express my exasperation and highlight the stupidity of the of the right-wing/libertarian viewpoint that the market is always self-correcting.

            The problem is that WordPress supports both explicit markup (e.g., <blockquote>) and implicit (i.e., magic) markup (e.g., converting plaintext references to URLs). The implicit markup is the problem in this case since it does the wrong thing and results in the video being embedded. Something that ,should require explicit action. It’s probably a WordPress policy bug rather than an implementation bug.

          3. Ugh. Thanks for the heads-up on the issue. Another instance of getting screwed by design/default. If and when things chill here, I’ll probably end up spending time making requests to the WP community regarding some added tick-boxes to affect options like this. It sure is god-damned annoying.

          4. It was bugging me too much not to leave it alone – and do not know if it applies in Jerry’s case (e.g. if WordPress site upgrades would be needed to address the issue) – and you may already know this, but it appears WP uses “oEmbed” against a list of whitelisted sites, of which Youtube is one – when deciding how to behave.

            Seems like individual embedding by site is possible by modifying what is whitelisted, described here…

            http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_oembed_remove_provider

    2. Agreed; but, they are quite racy in content and language, and I think that if they were shown to “young students,” the teacher would immediately be confronted by a mob of pitchfork-wielding parents.

      1. For those parents I recommend a daily recitation of Mae West’s aphorism that “Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often.” Since that is unlikely to change their minds I would point out that the world always needs ditch diggers and they’re wasting time educating their children.

    1. What’s hilarious, is I made the same comment there as I did here. Apparently “Apes of the Hamburger” really cracks me up!

  8. While playing golf by myself near dusk several years ago at a course called The Falls in New Ulm, Texas, aka the middle of nowhere, I was lucky enough to see a very large owl, from a distance of about 30 feet. It was perched on the ground, quietly attending to one of its recent kills.

    It swiveled its head 180° and stared at me for a brief moment, justifiably annoyed, and then it literally jumped into the air and flew off, its huge wings making nothing more than a whisper. I’ll never forget that spectacle.

    Later that same day I rounded a corner in the golf cart, on the cart path, only to nearly get trampled by a very large stag, that regarded me with a snort, and then strode away.

    I wonder if the owl elks-lodged a complaint…

    *rimshot*

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