anon6789

anon6789, 4 hours ago

From the Peregrine Fund:

You have heard the expression “wolf in sheep’s clothing”? With the Great Grey Owl, it is more a case of “little owl in big owl clothing.” Though this owl is the largest owl in North America – measuring about 2 feet tall (61 cm) – it weighs only 2-4 pounds (0.9 - 1.8 kg). Compare that with a Eurasian Eagle-owl, which is just slightly larger, but weighs 3-9 pounds (1.4 - 4.0 kg) and you will see what we mean. Why is this so? Great Grey Owls have relatively small bodies but are covered in so many dense layers of long feathers that they appear to be much bulkier than they are. It would be like you wearing all your clothes at once, which would definitely make you look much bigger. One advantage to this could be protective – a large appearance can be deceiving to predators and make them think twice before attacking such large prey.

anon6789, 4 hours ago

Quantom Owl is in both trees!

anon6789, 4 hours ago

It would make evolutionary sense…they all want to be the tree to receive the owl’s…fertilizer! 😁

anon6789, 3 hours ago

Soooo, this is a very complex question, but we can look at a few things.

We’ll start with one of the easiest aspects. Part of our fascination with owls is their ability to blend into nature, so many of the photos we get are going to be selected to highlight this thing which is amazing to us. If you go back through all the owl pics here, there are absolutely some, where even when cropped in tightly, are still pretty invisible. Others are fairly distant, and you can still see them well. Especially when moving, camouflage loses much of its effectiveness. That is why owls spend most of their day motionless, just sitting and observing.

Now, does an owl have awareness of its camouflage? Owls have been around for 60 million years. They are almost everywhere in the world and have become successful in almost any ecosystem. If you pick any random owl, you’re most likely going to find a brown or grey as a main color. Even of you didn’t add any patterning, it’s still a very good start to blend in to a backdrop of trees. Over many generations, we’re going to be left with owls who are born with a sense of what works. Blending in with your background is called crypsis, or cryptic camouflage. It’s something done by countless animals. For the owls, even when they don’t blend in perfectly, they are still not very noticeable. They are generally up above their prey, and probably hear most prey before it has a chance to see them. It doesn’t need to be perfectly invisible all the time, just long enough to get it time to get the jump on their target.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/1d58ff16-19f3-4cb4-a046-9bc8a113caf4.jpeg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53352155153_56419122f7_c.jpg

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/810a1399-7134-432e-8bf8-2382f149383f.jpeg

These images have them standing out pretty well, but the owls have also been pointed out to us by the photographer, they are still reasonably hidden, and we aren’t a tiny rodent crawling much lower, and we’re examining it with human intelligence. The only thing that will likely give this owl away to the prey is movement when it takes off.

Birds have a bit more intelligence than some other organisms of course, and there is evidence that owls have some sense of self awareness of their camouflage. Owls will contort their body and feathers to elongate and slim down to better mimic a tree branch when they wish to hide. They also seem to know their eyes are noticeable and will shut their eyes to become even more hidden. Here is a pic of Flammy from the other week showing what a difference closed eyes can make.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/38d40aef-f7d5-49cc-a8c3-1ab600b5d133.png

Owls will get much feedback from their camouflage ability. As a predator, they will learn what works or what doesn’t, and I’m sure by now much of that is in their genes. They also need to stay hidden during the day to avoid attacks by other animals that don’t want them around so they will learn what places they get bothered less.

I’m disappointed I haven’t seen any studies specifically on this, but I will keep my eyes out for any. The things I’ve mentioned seem to be a combination of thoughts that I could find. I did see some neat thing about how some Japanese quails learn if they lay eggs with darker or lighter spots and will then make future nests in lighter or darker locations to help them blend in more, so there are many cool tricks bird have to be invisible. How much is genetic/mimicry/learned still seems to be up for debate, but it is all fascinating.

anon6789, 1 day ago

Here’s the other stretch photo mentioned above:

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/ec2308ed-3f5a-43ab-8d58-db11d91de671.webp

Yesterday I posted a photo of this owl doing the over head wing stretch. Here is a photo taken moments before of him doing the one wing stretch. Many birds do it and they basically stand on one leg and stretch their wing down as far as they can. was shooting in horizontal mode here and when he suddenly did the stretch, I had too much lens and it happened so quick, didn’t have time to reorient the camera to a vertical mode., so didn’t capture the fullest extent of the stretch.

anon6789, 1 day ago

Don’t miss out on the great owl articles shared over the last few days!

Questionably Moral Owl Photography

Need for new owl houses due to climate change - plus lots of photos of owls in houses

Flash Photography Safe for Owls?

Signs of Stress in Owls

anon6789, 1 day ago

I hope it feels just as good!

anon6789, 1 day ago

You’re right! 🤣

anon6789, 1 day ago

I had to look this one up, but that is good!

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/c5a3d2e4-262e-49cd-a00f-a4e2c5850409.jpeg

anon6789, 16 hours ago

This guy always provides a good bit of commentary. Some can be a little odd, but it’s a nice change from the usual in nothing or just a vague location and camera info.

anon6789, 1 day ago

Bananas other than the Cavendish and a greater variety of potatoes. There are supposed to be so many varieties of each out there, but we only get one banana and 3 or 4 potatoes.

The cherimoya is also pretty good from what I remember, so I would like to have that again for >$5.

anon6789, 2 days ago

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/ba8d643e-c83e-4089-83ad-823ce750bd00.gif

anon6789, 1 day ago

That was a great poem!

That guy has one heck of a beard too!

You guys share the best stuff.

anon6789, 1 day ago

I thought it was so good and bad at the same time. (But I feel the bad lasts longer!). I’ve had candy, wafers, and dried forms. The worst has always been that it makes me burp and it tastes like a restaurant dumpster smells.

It’s like in a movie when someone’s mind is fed ask the knowledge in the universe until they’re overwhelmed and turn to dust or explode, but for taste buds.

anon6789, 2 days ago

I really enjoyed the Prehistoric Planet series that Apple TV and David Attenborough did. I thought that was done beautifully enough and told such interesting stories that I would further I was watching pure CGI.

One of the chapters in What An Owl Knows that I believe I shared here talked about how drones have been extremely helpful in research involving the Blakiston’s Fish Owl. Their nests are very high up along freezing cold rivers in very difficult terrain and they were so poorly researched due to that. The drones let the researchers work from a base camp, keeping them from spending multiple days slowly disturbing the owl’s territory and climbing trees looking for nests. Now they can just get in and out. It seems safer by far for the people, and less disturbing to an animal not used to people.

anon6789, 2 days ago

You’ve reminded me I forgot to share the controversy with the aurora photo!

Usually when I come across amazing shots there will be people challenging them on this and that, but I felt the challengers may have been right in this instance.

Someone asked how the owl was lit, and he said he had used a flash. Flash photography of owls is a debated subject, and here is a brief Audubon article about it.

That admission led to the further accusations that this photographer purposefully set up a camera too close to this nest (I’m not sure the effective range of a flash at night) and blasted this bird with light as it was flying back towards its tree, which is not the safest thing for an owl. It sounds much like if someone would shine a light in your face while trying to park a car.

The other claims were that this was a composite image, which looking at it again, seems likely. The photography people, much like what you said, said to photograph the aurora takes a long exposure, and to get the owl is a fast exposure. The photographer did not mention before or after if it was a composite or not.

Here’s the pic in question for anyone just joining in:

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/8ef262b4-1923-4d0d-af7e-d445f73a6562.webp

anon6789, 2 days ago

I just shared this article in another reply below.

Is Flash Photography Safe for Owls?

I also share the controversy with the aurora photo in that comment as well, so I thought you would want to see that as well. Link to comment

anon6789, 2 days ago

Lol I always put it on my list of old people characteristics I now seem to have.

They are pretty great! They’re a ton of kinds just about anywhere you go. They’re generally not scary. They sing. Most would be considered pretty. They’re dinosaurs. Some you can train or befriend. And a bunch more.

anon6789, 2 days ago

Next they learn Scrabble!

anon6789, 2 days ago

That is a really cool article! Thanks for sharing!

anon6789, 1 day ago

Well, seeing what passes for pigeon nests, menu aren’t going to have very high expectations for intelligence afterwards! 🤣

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/ccf6b383-7113-4cba-bb3e-0b5a50d11c51.jpeg