{"id":11820,"date":"2013-01-24T09:40:47","date_gmt":"2013-01-24T16:40:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=11820"},"modified":"2013-01-24T14:48:15","modified_gmt":"2013-01-24T21:48:15","slug":"barn-owl-hunting-adaptations-and-techniques","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/01\/24\/barn-owl-hunting-adaptations-and-techniques\/","title":{"rendered":"Barn Owl Hunting Adaptations And Techniques"},"content":{"rendered":"

One more Barn Owl post and then I’ll give them a rest for a while.<\/p>\n

Lately I’ve spent a lot of time watching these birds hunt and I’ve become intrigued by the process and their adaptations for doing so.\u00a0 Hunting over deep snow presents unique challenges because their prey (typically voles) spends most of their time in tunnels\u00a0under the surface, so the owls are often hunting by sound alone.\u00a0 According to Birds of North America Online<\/em> (out of Cornell) Barn\u00a0Owls hunt prey by sound more effectively than any\u00a0other animal ever tested (I’m unsure if this statement takes into account the use of sonar by cetaceans and ultrasonic sounds by bats but BNA seldom gets things like this wrong).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"barn<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

They fly low and slow over the surface while\u00a0watching and listening but with this much snow they usually locate the voles only by sound.\u00a0\u00a0 Notice that they can tuck their legs up into their ventral feathers so far that only the feet are visible.\u00a0 It’s amazing that they can do so because…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"barn<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

as you can see in this “butt shot” those legs are incredibly long.\u00a0 This is an adaptation for grasping prey through deep vegetation or snow.\u00a0 Their claws (nails) are unusually\u00a0long and sharp and the middle nail has a pectinate inner edge, most likely an adaptation for grasping prey and for grooming. \u00a0 It’s thrilling to watch them plunge into the snow in an attempt to snag the unseen prey.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"barn<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Sometimes they almost disappear in the deep powder.\u00a0 Imagine how\u00a0far into the snow those long legs were able to reach in search of the vole.\u00a0\u00a0The owl was unsuccessful this time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"barn<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/3200, f\/5.6, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Yesterday morning I watched this owl plunge into the snow and was excited that it was so close but of course it was facing away from me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"barn<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

At first I wasn’t sure if it had caught the vole or not because even when unsuccessful these birds often sit in the snow for a short time before taking off again.\u00a0 One of the things I like about this shot is that we can see at least part of both the upper and lower mandibles – something not easily seen clearly in this species.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"barn<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

But this bird struggled with “something” under the snow for over 9 minutes, so even though I didn’t actually see the owl eating the vole (they often swallow them whole) I’m fairly certain that it enjoyed a meal.<\/p>\n

It was very cold (about 7 degrees F)\u00a0and when this bird took off it landed on a nearby hill and just stood there, shivering almost constantly.\u00a0 Life is tough for Barn Owls this winter.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

Note:\u00a0 Here’s a link to a local newspaper article<\/strong> <\/a>that should give you some idea of just how difficult it is for birds in northern Utah this winter.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One more Barn Owl post and then I’ll give them a rest for a while. Lately I’ve spent a lot of time watching these birds hunt and I’ve become intrigued by the process and their adaptations for doing so.\u00a0 Hunting over deep snow presents unique challenges because their prey (typically voles) spends most of their time in tunnels\u00a0under the surface, so the owls are often hunting by sound alone.\u00a0 According to Birds of North America Online (out of Cornell) Barn\u00a0Owls hunt prey by sound more effectively than any\u00a0other animal ever tested (I’m unsure if this statement takes into account the use of sonar by cetaceans and ultrasonic sounds by bats but BNA seldom gets things like this wrong).   \u00a01\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in They fly low and slow over the surface while\u00a0watching and listening but with this much snow they usually locate the voles only by sound.\u00a0\u00a0 Notice that they can tuck their legs up into their ventral feathers so far that only the feet are visible.\u00a0 It’s amazing that they can do so because…     \u00a01\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in as you can see in this “butt shot” those legs are incredibly long.\u00a0 This is an adaptation for grasping prey through deep vegetation or snow.\u00a0 Their claws (nails) are unusually\u00a0long and sharp and the middle nail has a pectinate inner edge, most likely an adaptation for grasping prey…<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[344,334],"tags":[45,1169,1168,891,178,1166,1167,1170,256,1171,286,302,309,311,315],"class_list":["post-11820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barn-owls","category-birds","tag-barn-owl","tag-beak","tag-claws","tag-focus-sounds","tag-hunting","tag-hunting-adaptations","tag-long-legs","tag-mandibles","tag-prey","tag-shivering","tag-snow","tag-talons","tag-tyto-alba","tag-utah-2","tag-vole"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-34E","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11820\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}