The first bird shown in the last post was a northern saw-whet owl (Aegolius acadicus), America’s second smallest owl—the elf owl, at 1.4 oz or 40 grams, is the smallest in the world—weighing in at a hefty 2.3–5.3 oz (65–151 g). Like many birds, owls have a remarkable ability to keep their heads absolutely steady as their bodies are rotated. This enables them to keep their gaze fixed while performing aerial maneuvers, such as catching mice.
A demonstration:
Awesome.
That is really cool. Its expression is one of… owly exasperation.
Chickens aren’t bad at this, either:
The black, rotary, corded, wall-mounted telephone in the background caught my eye.
In some owls the ear apertures are located asymmetrically upon the skull, allowing time differences in arriving sound caused by prey to be detected, thereby allowing the owl to very accurately locate its dinner. A very great advantage in low light.
Trigowlometry.
😀
But can you explain the huge disparity in pupil diameter in the main video? (Is it just that the sky is slightly brighter to the left?)
Wonderful vid!
Reblogged this on The Road.
This may interest anyone coming back to this page –
The Avian Head Induces Cues for Sound Localization in Elevation
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0112178
I had the immense pleasure of participating in a night of saw-whet owl banding in Maine with my daughter and sister. They have sharp little claws, which don’t hurt us much, but are difficult to release from your skin.
We weighed them by sticking them head first into the remains of a frozen orange juice can. Since they live in similarly sized hollows of trees, that doesn’t distress them much and keeps them mostly immobile for the scale.
They are so cute.