I got to fly some birds of prey this weekend !
I got to fly some birds of prey this weekend !
This lil guy didn't get to fly but he was very cute
That is awesome!
That Eagle Owl is so pretty. The eyes came out so lovely in the photo.
Did you learn anything new or surprising from getting to interact with them in person?
Yeah I love how eagle owls look. Magnificent little fellas
I learned a lot of things about raptors behavior, how they are heavily affected by their past experiences with humans, all of them have their own personalities, like some of them actually respond to flattery or praises, etc. I was a little surprised to learn that most birds of prey won't fly if they don't need to hunt for their survival because I never really thought about it but it makes a lot of sense, especially for predatory birds.
Conservation of calories has been one of the greatest things to changing my appreciation of birds in general. We all know we need to eat to live, but birds need about 1/3 of they're weight in food a day to stay healthy. Every flight is the equivalent to us doing an all out sprint, and every flight that doesn't leave them with more calories taken in than they put into the attempt leaves them in a worse situation. Too many misses and they may not have the energy to make another. It really changed my perspective on a lot of animal activity thinking about it that way.
Congratulations. One of those things about flying birds is how cool it feels when they land on your arm and you realise how much lighter they are compared to their looks.
Very nice how much would you say an owl weighs? About as much as a big orange?
That barn owl weighed 320g which felt super light for its size. I didn't ask why but I felt like the nocturnals looked a lot heavier than they are, as opposed to the other raptors we got to fly who basically felt as heavy as I expected when I saw them. I guess owls have more "fluffy" feathers which makes them look bigger ?
Owl feathers are less dense to begin with and they have a higher wing:body ratio compared to most birds.
The way I explain it is like a larger diameter CPU fan needs to run at a lower RPM than a small fan to move equal amounts of air, and will therefore run quieter. The owl uses this so it has to flap less, making flight quieter. Plus the feathers being less dense pushes the air less, making less turbulence and keeping noise down as well.
Getting to hold an owl, hawk, and condor feather all at once at the National Aviary really let me feel they are worlds apart in structure. The owl feather we'll say would be yarn, the hawk would be braided wire, and the condor would be solid core wire. The difference was quite shocking, and honestly I thought that was more fun than actually holding the owl because I didn't get to pet it! 😜