owl

The barn-owl family can be distinguished from other owl groups by its heart-shaped face, relatively small eyes, and long slender legs. The long, hooked beak is usually concealed by feathers. All barn-owls are hunters by night.

The short-eared owl eats field voles and other small mammals, small birds, and insects. It will often hunt in broad daylight. The ‘ears’ which give the owl its name are actually tufts of feathers with no sensory function.

A snowy owl, from British Columbia in Canada.

Live owls are among the food items for sale on the streets of Qingping market, in the city of Guangzhou, China. This private market developed during the late 1970s, with the encouragement of free enterprise. Other animals sold in this bustling area of the city are snakes, monkeys, and turtles.

Any of a group of mainly nocturnal birds of prey found worldwide. They have hooked beaks, heads that can turn quickly and far round on their very short necks, and forward-facing immobile eyes, surrounded by ‘facial discs’ of rayed feathers; they fly silently and have an acute sense of hearing. Owls comprise two families: typical owls (family Strigidae), of which there are about 120 species, and barn owls (family Tytonidae), of which there are 10 species. (Order Strigiformes.)

They feed mainly on rodents, but sometimes also eat reptiles, fish, and insects, and some species have been seen feeding on carrion. All species lay white eggs, and begin incubation as soon as the first egg is laid. They regurgitate indigestible remains of their prey in pellets (castings).

The snowy owl (Nyctea scandiaca) lives in the Arctic. The largest of the owls are the eagle owl (Bubo bubo) of Europe and Asia and the powerful owl (Ninox strenua) of Australia, both up to 0.75 m/2.25 ft long. The worldwide common barn owl (Tyto alba) is now diminished by pesticides and loss of habitat; in Malaysia, it is used for rat control.

Owls are distinguished from all other birds of prey, except the osprey, by the tarsus (ankle bone) being half the length of the tibia (shinbone), while the outer toe can be turned backwards or forwards at will. Another distinction is the absence of the aftershaft present in the feathers of all other hawks; this is a small accessory plume which springs from the underside of the main feather.

The short-eared owl (Asio flammeus) of North America, South America, Europe, and Asia is a streaked tawny colour, about 38 cm/15 in long; it hunts at dawn and dusk and roosts mainly on the ground. The great horned owl (Bubo virginianus) of North and South America measures 56 cm/22 in, has long ear-tufts, and lives in forests, grasslands, and deserts.

A new species of pygmy owl, the cloud-forest pygmy owl Glaucidium nubicola, was discovered in 1999 rainforest in southern Colombia and northern Ecuador. It is 15 cm in height.