Owls of the World Their Lives, Behavior and Survival

IntroductionI am often asked: "Why are you so interested in owls? " This is difficult to answer. My emotional reaction to owls is nothing short of an aptitude, a passion, and a love affair of sorts. Not the kind of expression people expect from a scientist. After all, the widely held and incorrect stereotype is that scientists are always objective about their research subjects. And I am not alone. Consider Paul Johnsgard's personal dedication in his wonderful book, North American Owls:To those who know owls to be something more than ordinary birds if something less than gods, deserving our respect and loveI have had years to search for a more objective or rational reason why owls fascinate me, reasons acceptable to more orthodox fellow scientists. When needed, I trot out the somewhat sterile: "Owls are excellent research animals with which to examine the natural history of vertebrate predator-prey relationships." I also sometimes state, correctly, that: "As top predators with large home ranges, many owls are good indicators of healthy ecosystems and sustainable development." These are reasons consistent with my personal conservation ethic. But what really excites me about owls is that even in our modern times there remains so much to learn about them.Owls are among the first birds that children readily identify and distinguish from other birds. When people see or interact with owls they express themselves differently than, say, with a crow, heron or chicken. Perhaps this is because an owl's head and face appears somewhat similar to ours. Like us, owls have large, forward-facing eyes. This gives them excellent binocular vision, an important aid for rapid depth perception while hunting visible prey or gauging distances to perches while flying. Their relatively large eyes relate to their nocturnal habits. Large eyes gather more light at night than small eyes. The staring, wide-eyed aspect of owls makes them look innocent or bewildered, like infant humans. Relatively large eyes are also known to stimulate the emotions of caring and affection in humans and perhaps in other mammals. Cartoon animators and advertisers, in recognition of this human trait, draw characters with oversized eyes. The good and loveable characters (e.g., Mickey Mouse) typically have big eyes, the villains, narrow and shifty eyes.The eyes of an owl are surrounded by a feathered disk that gives it a primate-like head -- big and round with no apparent neck. Like us, owls blink with their upper eyelids (most other birds use their lower eyelids). The exposed part of their short, curved bills appears remarkably nose-like completing the human-like image. These characteristics have resulted in owls becoming icons in human culture in diverse and sometimes bizarre ways.Other animals besides humans have also taken notice of owls in subconscious and immediate ways. Many prey species react quickly to the presence of an owl by fleeing, giving alarm calls or even gathering in groups that drive away the potential predator. Behavioral biologists have elicited similar responses by using exaggerated large yellow eyes painted on flat or round objects, a phenomenon known as supernormal stimuli. Over the millennia, individual prey that did not flee or react quickly enough to the sudden appearance of owls were selectively weeded out by predation.Many species have capitalized on the evolved effectiveness of the owl-eye stimuli. This signal has independently evolved in manids, butterflies and moths, beetles, flies, katydids, fish, frogs and a non-raptorial bird called the sunbittern. The northern pygmy owl has a set of owl eye-like spots on the back of its head to either ward off mobbing birds or to thwart potential ambushes from predatoDuncan, James R. is the author of 'Owls of the World Their Lives, Behavior and Survival' with ISBN 9781552978450 and ISBN 1552978451.