No-Look Catch!
No-Look Catch!
Photo by John Hoang
A Burrow Owl makes hunting look easy.
There's a lot of things in this photo to comment on, so let's get something going on here. You've all been too quiet lately!
Somehow I never realized owls eat bugs. I guess all the owl pellets I dissected lied to me
Before I started doing all these posts, I just thought owls are rats, mice, moles, and voles, and that was about it.
Now I know they eat just about anything made of meat. Butterflies, worms, frogs, fish, snakes, bats, birds, other owls, skunks, porcupines, and occasionally carrion of deer or wild pigs. The amount of snakes I've seen Mr Owl bring back to the nest on the Hilton Head RaptorCAM has been crazy!
Most pellets I see for sale are labeled as Barn Owl, so that's going to have more rodent and mammal bits.
Pellets are wonderful sources of data. They not only tell us about the owls, but about all those prey animals. Many prehistoric species have been discovered thanks to owls. By roosting in places like caves and coughing up those pellets in there for tens of thousands of years, owls have left behind an amazing cache of animal history!
Word!
Does anyone know what kind of beetle that is? Other than a lunch beetle.
I have this post from before where the photographer called it a June bug, but someone else got very defensive that it was actually a figeater beetle. That looks similar to this, so check out those 2 first.
Would’ve expected the owl to be hunting at night (?)
Burrowing Owls are active during the day, unlike most owls, believe it or not!
https://www.fws.gov/species/burrowing-owl-athene-cunicularia
I wanna see a no-scope 360 catch now. Great pic though.
Edit: I once lost a Burrow owl. Looked all over in the trees. Couldn't find it.
Stuart, I warned you they were doing things to the soil. Now the trees are full of burrow owls!
Landing strips for owls I guess.
