Flying by an expert.
- Thread starter usta in Portland
- Start date
mx5rush
True Classic
Kind of spooky how steady an owls head remains in flight.
This video explains it all... it's primarily because they rely so much on their insane hearing all the way in for the kill. Even in pure darkness or under a blankey of snow, they manage pinpoint accuracy on their prey...
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yps7pgq1TAk"]Sophisticated sonar of wild owls hunting in the arctic forest - BBC wildlife - YouTube[/ame]
This video explains it all... it's primarily because they rely so much on their insane hearing all the way in for the kill. Even in pure darkness or under a blankey of snow, they manage pinpoint accuracy on their prey...
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yps7pgq1TAk"]Sophisticated sonar of wild owls hunting in the arctic forest - BBC wildlife - YouTube[/ame]
usta in Portland
Daily Driver
Out in the Cotswolds...
sort of near Oxford there is a bird of prey center that puts on little demonstrations of falconery and also displays behavior of non-falconing species like owls. The demonstration that was most interesting was the barn owl they have trained for the 'show'. They do two things which are impressive. One is to demonstrate just how blind an owl is-they do this by holding a piece of meat in front of the bird and getting no reaction, then they hold it really close and then lay it gently on the ground right in front him. Then they put the owl on their arm and drop the piece of meat on the ground-the bird is on the meat in nano seconds by virtue of hearing it,usually it picks up the sound of it actually falling and is already flying before it hits.
The other demonstration is to have the owls fly past people so close that they brush your face sometimes-the point of this is that you can't hear the sound of the air being moved by its wing movements-they did this with 6 people and nobody could detect a sound. The reason is that the bird has to have complete silence as it is honing in on prey and its wing movements are therefor silent. Other predator birds don't have this, a fact they demonstrated in the same way by very close fly bys.
If anyone is in that area on a trip it is worth the time-I think it is the Batsford Bird of Prey center or something like that, a couple miles NW of Moreton-in-Marsh, which is a train stop.
sort of near Oxford there is a bird of prey center that puts on little demonstrations of falconery and also displays behavior of non-falconing species like owls. The demonstration that was most interesting was the barn owl they have trained for the 'show'. They do two things which are impressive. One is to demonstrate just how blind an owl is-they do this by holding a piece of meat in front of the bird and getting no reaction, then they hold it really close and then lay it gently on the ground right in front him. Then they put the owl on their arm and drop the piece of meat on the ground-the bird is on the meat in nano seconds by virtue of hearing it,usually it picks up the sound of it actually falling and is already flying before it hits.
The other demonstration is to have the owls fly past people so close that they brush your face sometimes-the point of this is that you can't hear the sound of the air being moved by its wing movements-they did this with 6 people and nobody could detect a sound. The reason is that the bird has to have complete silence as it is honing in on prey and its wing movements are therefor silent. Other predator birds don't have this, a fact they demonstrated in the same way by very close fly bys.
If anyone is in that area on a trip it is worth the time-I think it is the Batsford Bird of Prey center or something like that, a couple miles NW of Moreton-in-Marsh, which is a train stop.