Semi-Daily Journal

Owls have amazingly good sound-muffling structures in their feathers -- yet another marvelous chance discovery of Darwinian evolution (unless you believe in Intelligent Design). Back in the early 1970s, I was walking home one evening at sunset to my dorm at the U. of Santa Cruz (which is stuck in the middle of a redwood forest and has a lot of woodland creatures still haning around) when I heard someone nearby doing what was obviously a very bad imitation of an owl -- until I realized that the "Hoo"'s were coming from the branches of a very small tree next to the sidewalk. The next night, by chance, I was walking by the same tree at the same time of evening and caught a closeup glimpse of something roughly the size of a large pillow wafting in absolute, dead silence into the branches -- and I wasn't 15 feet away.

Things heard at night in the country;

"Hey, who put the 5 gallon bucket in that tree?"

"You mean the 5 gallon bucket that just flew away?"

"Yeah, never mind."

Maybe yours was a Great Horned Owl? Distribution from Central America to the Arctic Circle. That's one successful predatory bird.

The owls are not what they seem.

--Kynn

The owls are not what they seem.

--Kynn

Yes, it is "sound muffling" rather than low weight (relative to other birds)that makes the owl fly silently. Some species could engage you in a fight if you try to imitate them under the wrong circumstances. They are hevy enough to make this a "Not recommended".

The German philosopher Hegel remarks that the owl was the sacred animal of Athens, because he flew around at day, and in the evening sat on a branch seemingly thinking over what happened. That's why Greeks saw the owl as the symbol of wisdom.

Owls are actually fairly light...but those claws and beak are VERY sharp. My ex-wife was in wildlife rescue, and I've seen owls slice chuncks of raw meat seemingly effortlessly. You do NOT want one pissed at you up close!

Talked to a park ranger once (also a falconer) who had watched an owl fly out over a lake at dusk and take a small goose out of the water. The goose never looked up. I understand it is the long, flexible "flights" that do the muffling, and also spoil the owls ability to hunt as many daytime avian hunters do, by hovering and diving. That hovering at a great height business probably wouldn't work all that well at dusk, anyway.

A wonderful owl, well-drawn and wise, used to accompany the following legend in a famous British advertisement for pens, circa 1900:

They came as a boon and a blessing to men,
The Pickwick, the Owl and the Waverley Pen

NASA, Ames Research Center, studied owls to develop low noise aircraft for use in Viet Nam. IIRC one of the adaptations was serrated leading edge feathers on the wings. This idea was adapted for use on small fans that cool computers. Not sure how this idea faired in the market.
The low noise aircraft, powered adaptations of gliders, were, and still may be used at Ames, as platforms to obtain noise data, in flight, on helicopters and other a/c.

We saw a hawk yesterday afternoon from a distance of about 40 feet; it was perched low in a tree in the neighbor's back yard, holding a dead squirrel by the tail and taking occasional pecks at it. Funny, the hawk always strikes me as quite majestic and graceful in flight; up close it looked more oafish.

Morning doves, however, have feathers that whistle as they take off and fly. The doves coo, their feathers whistle. We have mockingbirds in our trees that imitate the whistling sounds of morning doves.

Lise

Many years ago when I was in college in India I spotted a large animal on the road. I thought it might be a monkey, an animal commonly seen in those parts, though unusual to be seen in the middle of the night when I spied it. I almost fell off my bicycle when it suddenly took to flight. I figured it must have been an owl too. It was quite large and looked thoroughly incapable of flight till it took off.

Many years ago when I was in college in India I spotted a large animal on the road. I thought it might be a monkey, an animal commonly seen in those parts, though unusual to be seen in the middle of the night when I spied it. I almost fell off my bicycle when it suddenly took to flight. I figured it must have been an owl too. It was quite large and looked thoroughly incapable of flight till it took off.

Sorry for the double post.

A lot of info for anyone who is interested:
http://www.owlpages.com/