How Owls Work

We have some woods in a creek behind our house, and I don't know, for a while there it seemed

like they might have been nesting. We were getting a lot of visitors, but had one in the driveway one time on a branch that we went out and looked at, and it did that deal where it's facing another way and hoodie hood at it and it turns this little head around like the exerc tried at us, and Emily went and Ruby was excited, and uh see we hear at the camp having I don't know if they're having sex or if those are mating calls, but some of

the crazy sounds they make manly interesting Yeah. I was looking up all the different owl calls and um, they are just magnificent and they're so very there's just so many different calls. They sound so dissimilar. It's really cool. There's one owl that sounds like a winning horse. Yeah, my favorite. I think it's the Eastern screech owl. It sounds like like a tiny little horse is winning. It's it's one of the best bird calls I've ever heard.

Ten out of ten. Uh would recommend, Yes, Okay, for sure, I just did. I think the ones that we hear are the the crazy sounds. I think they're just regular, not the bard owls, but the the great horned right, those are I think those are the ones that most people think of when they think of an owl. But I think they're just sexy calls, like mating calls. But they sound like howler monkeys almost. They do not sound like owls. It's really crazy. Yeah, totally anyway, So I

love ols the end. I love owls too, And we're gonna talk all about owls and including the how they turn their heads all the way around, which is pretty cool. Um. But one of the things that you hit upon right out of the gate, Chuck was that owls are raptors or birds of prey, so that that would put them

in league with hawks and eagles and that kind of thing. Um, But there are a lot different from hawks and eagles, not just in their looks and appearances, but in their biology and the way that they hunt, the way that they eat. Um, you know, they're they're they're actually definitely their own thing. Yeah, there are lots stockier um actually and look up wingspan, but to me, uh, it's always

signature owl. When you really notice something out of the corner of your eye, I'm always like, oh, wait, that has to be an owl because their wingspan is is much more impressive than the hawks and the falcons around here. Yeah. And they have big old heads of course, and little shorty tails. Uh, they got that. The toe is kind of a pretty featured, pretty cool featured, don't anythink. Yeah, it goes either forward or backward, I guess, depending on

the bowl's mood. There's another thing that's like so quintessentially owl, and that it has big eyes, not beady little eyes like your hawks or your eagles, but like big, almost human like eyes, perfectly round in the middle of their head, not on the side of their head, but front facing eye, so they have really amazing binocular vision and um, they have probably the best night vision of any animal out there,

even better than cats. They say, yeah, and you know one of the ways, Uh, this is something I wasn't sure about because sometimes you see the owl with the black eyes that are you know, I love my oles, but those are a little intimidating looking in animal jet black eyes and then the regular eyes where you can see color and pupils and stuff, And apparently they are the strictly nocturnal ones are the ones with the black eyes,

and that's how you can tell. And it's not like it doesn't help them and hunting other than their black to aid in their camouflage, so they can literally just be as dark as the night around them in every part of their body. I always took it as um their their eyes were black because they were saturated with all the souls that they captured over the years. I think that's probably true too. So um, owls have been around for a little while, Chuck, and they're actually super

because they've been around. I think the oldest owl fossil that we found is like up to fifty five million years old. Um. And because they've been around so long, they were living on Earth at a time and the continents were in a totally different configure ration than they are today. And so owls are like widespread there on every single continent except Antarctica. Um. And they live in all sorts of different habitats. As we'll find out, there's

I think two fifty species total. And because they live in all these different places, but they're all still owls, they do slightly different things. They've evolved somewhat differently, um, which is I just I think it makes owls even neater frankly. Yeah, and uh, you know it was the little guy, the elf. Yeah, the elf owl. Those are super cute. Those are the tiniest ones. And owls can get quite large though, but it's it's a different kind of big. It's they have, like you know, they've got

that girth because they're short and stubby. Still. Uh. And in Georgia I looked up, we have I think eight different kinds of owls that you might see, but mainly the great horned and occasionally, if you're really lucky, you'll see a barn owl. Yeah, those cool white faces. We got some greech owls and some burrowers here and there, but but mainly you're going to see the great horned or the bard or the barn. Yes, the barred ones are pretty great to Those are the ones that look

like real tree camouflage and like browns and grays. They look they look very much like the great horned owl, except they don't have those toughs you know. Yeah, is that what the the horns are. Yeah, it's just toughs of feathers that makes it look horned. Yeah, they're they look like ears, but they're not ears. No, they don't, and they're actually they have nothing to do with hearing from what I saw there. Actually, I think they use them to communicate to other owls nonverbally, like look out

behind you or something, and then um. They also can move them in different positions, so it breaks up the shape of the owl and lets them camouflage in with branches among the trees more easily. That makes sense. I mean, they are as cool as they aren't. They are like evolutionarily perfect killing machines, but satically is what owls are. But they're also super chill too. Yeah, I mean you talked about the camouflage. It is pretty funny now that

I think about it. For being such a sort of large squat object, they can be really hard to find, like in your backyard when you're like I hear it and he's very close to me or you know, and then finally your eyes adjust and you go, Okay, there she is right there. Yeah, exactly. Very adaptable camouflage. Well, not adapt that doesn't change like an octopus, but you know what I mean, they've adapted will. So you mentioned

barn owls, they're actually a different family of owl. So all owls are grouped into the strigi forms, That's how I'm saying, and then the strigiforms are subdivided into these two families. Um Titan of d Day. I added an extra syllable, titana day. Yeah, okay, I got it. Those are all about barn owls. It's about seventeen species, and then all the other approximately rest of the two and

fifties species are streaky day, which are true owls. And the way that they typically differentiate them, Chuck is the um barn owls have the heart shaped face. True owls have more of a rounded disc face. I think the barn owls have a little bit longer legs, but they're you know, they're fairly similar in size depending on the species, unless you get you know, some some crazy outlier like the elf owl sure, which are ridiculously cute. They're like they I don't know if they're the same size or

the same weight of a golf ball. Oh man, it's got to be weight, I think, so golf ball is tiny. So I think the most familiar owls in North America and Europe are the true owls, right, But barn owls are found everywhere in the world basically. Yeah, but I think they're obviously because they're more groupings or more true owls, right. And we were talking about the hooting, and it's funny, I've seen I saw this in multiple places, this thing that you found like when you hear a barred owl

hooting the who cooks for you? And who cooks for you all? And I didn't get that until I watched the videos and paired it with what they were saying, and I kind of get it now. But I would argue that it's who cooks for y'all? Yeah, because it's still for still four hoots, yeah, not five hoots. Yeah, you're right, that's I couldn't put my finger on it. I'm like that, that's not quite it. Yeah, here, let me let me try my best attempt. That's pretty close to the bar. Yeah, and I added the y'all in

there for you. So yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah, I thought I did a pretty good owl. But that puts me to shame. So barn owls. So there's there's these little weirdos. They're their own family. Um. They have heart shaped faces and they also hiss. That's like the call that they make is a hissing sound. There a little weirdos. As we'll see. They're really cool looking and very interesting owls,

but they're they're strange in their own way for sure. Yeah, and then you got, like you said, that screech owl that winnis uh, the saw weet owl has sort of a um they liken it to a file being scraped across saw teeth. I don't get that at all. I didn't get that at all. But it is kind of a high tone and it does sound different than a lot of owls. But I just encourage if you've got ten minutes in your life, just sit around and listen

to some alcohols. It's a good time. There's actually like hour and a half long YouTube videos or that, like nighttime owl calls to calm you down, and it's great. Like if you've run out of stuff, you should know episodes and you have to say, maybe turn to something like that. I think we should talk about their head turn though the exorcistem move, because when you see one and they turn it to look directly those black eyes

directly into your face. I don't care how much you love an owl, it is very a very chilling sensation that comes up for you. It just is. It's because the owls regarding you, they're not even looking at you. They're they're like sizing you up. You can tell, you know, yeah, maybe that's it. It's like are you food sort of look. I almost take it as more like are you even worthy to be in the same area A kind of thing,

you know what I'm saying a little bit a little bit. Yeah, but they I mean, but they deserve to do that. I think owls can back that up. They're that cool. Yeah. Well they use that, like you said, because their eyes are on the front of their face, so they have to turn their head to be able to see because they're very focused very you know, long range binocular vision. It's some really good vision. But their eyeballs just don't

move around. They can't. They can't move their eyeballs at all. Right, they have actually what are called I tubes, we have like eyeballs that can move around. They're they're just tubes are fixed in their head um. And yeah, so they have to turn their whole head. And the way that they turn their whole head two hundreds and having d degrees, it's three quarters of a full circle. That's a that's really impressive. I mean, you try that. Don't try that.

Actually you might seriously injure yourself. But so an awl can turn their head that well because they actually have a mechanism where blood is constantly pooling in this little collection area, so that when they turn their head towards after a certain point, they cut off the circulation to their eyes and brains, so they would not be able to get any blood any longer to those very vital organs were it not for that collection of blood that's pooled up that's pumping it into their eye and brain

while their head is turned around to that degree. Amazing. I think that's effect of the show yeah, I'll back that up. You get something better. I don't know owl that sounds like a small winning horse. That's pretty impressive to you know. Uh. They also can have asymmetrical ears, meaning their ears can be at different heights on their own head, which is really cool, and that just basically is a more efficient hearing system. They have really great

hearing as well. They can hear. They can hear like a mouse under two ft of snow moving around. Yeah, and they can like really triangulate because the difference in the arrival time for a sound between one year and the other, since they're offset, can help them pinpoint exactly where that prey is. And because they're they're they're hearing is so amazing that they can hear under dirt, snow, leaves, um,

wherever the poor little mouse is trying to hide. The owl can actually hear it moving around in there, probably breathing really nervous because it knows an owl is out there. And one of the other ways that they um can hear so well checked because of their face too, right, Yeah,

and this is this is super cool. If you've ever seen an owl, I mean, they all have feels like sort of flat faces, but some of them almost like concave in the way their face is really flat, and then the feathers around their face kind of come out to form a a little bowl almost, and that is a evolutionary trade. It basically turns their face into an ear in a certain way. Yeah, almost like a like a um uh antenna or um Yeah. One of them discs hold up at a football game, satellite dish. Sure,

what do you hold up at a football game? Well, you know the microphone people at sporting events, they have a microphone inside a big dish. So catch just the sound. I thought you were talking about fans for some reason, and my brain was like, I can't bring any image of what Chuck is talking about up right. Now. There's a there's a word for it too, because it's you know, you're pointed at something far away and it helps collect this sound. Yeah, I know, exactly like an earhorn. Sure,

like a owl face is probably what the face. I think that's what they call it in the in the in the industry. Sure break, oh jinks, Chuck jinks. The spirit of the owl is with us. All right, We'll be right back after this, all right, So you put this thing together with the help of some great websites on owls. And you're including our our friends house stuff Works.

Oh yeah, they have a good one on owls. They had some on owls flying Silently, but also um mental Floss had a really good article audubon, um fizz dot org, Research Institute and owling dot com and Mr Skin Oh wait, um, so what you found on most of those websites is that owls just have a few basic needs to live and thrive and that as of course as food and we'll talk about how the hunting all that stuff coming up here soon. They gotta have someplace to roost. And

as we'll see, owls are are house thieves. Uh, they steal nests and burrows. They're not. They don't like building houses and nests, so they tend to steal them. Uh. And then they need, you know, they need a place to nest. Uh. Like roosting and nesting near food is a big component of being an owl. And near food can mean a lot of different places depending on where

you are in the world. Yeah, and the difference between a roost and a nest is a roost is where they sleep for the night or the day actually more like it. And then their nest is where they have their babies and rear their their little owlets or what they're called. And because that's all they really need. Like, you can find that just about everywhere in the world.

And that's one of the reasons why owls have been so successful almost everywhere in the world, in addition to the fact that their night hunting maniacs um and so you can find them in sub Saharan Africa and try pics in Hawaii. Um. And the habitats they live in are also just all over the place, like wetlands, marshlands, the Arctic tundra, the snowy owl, which fans of Harry Potter are familiar with, hedwig owl. He was he I'm sorry, she was a snowy owl. Um. And they hunt in

the Arctic and live in the Arctic forests of any kind. Deserts, that little alf owl that you're so fond of, understandably, So they live in the desert, right, Yeah. They they eat a lot of insects, a lot of spiders. They even eat scorpions, the occasional small reptile if it's small enough. And where are you gonna find that in the desert? Yeah? And then they also live in the cacti that you find in the desert. They live in little hollowed out holes of the um. How do you say that, seguaro cacti?

That sounds good, the big famous, you know, like anytime bugs bunny's walking through the desert exactly, that's the siguara as far as I know. And alf owls live in in hollows in the saguaro cacti. Yeah, I think I've drawn a picture of an owl inside the hole a cactus hole? Really? Yeah? Was that when you were living

in Huma? No? But you know, sometimes when you have a kid, you sit around draw things with them, and like one of my go twos as a kid was a desert scene because a cactus is pretty fun to draw, and anytime I drew a cactus, I would draw a little hole with a little al face. Really yeah, And I have one here at the house with from the past two years that I will take a picture of and put it on my Instagram and maybe even on the stuff each and know Instagram. Actually, I think that's

a great idea. The thing is, the reason I'm like, wow, really impressed is because I had no idea that owl's first of all lived in the desert, but secondly nested in cacti. I started researching this, so I'm very impressed. I always did that though, And I always anytime I drew like a big oak, I would draw a hole with like a square face. Well that one makes sense. I do that. Yeah, I was just a dump kid.

I don't know how I knew about owls. And I'm impressed. Um, the great horned owl because they're so huge and boss they hunt just about everywhere. And then there's burrowing owls, which are almost like the roadrunners of owls, and you know, squirrels, prairie dogs, sometimes turtle burrows. Um, the owls will be like, hey, are you You're not using this anymore, I'm gonna take it over, thank you. There is one kind of owl

that burrows its own burrows, the Florida burrowing owl. But that's from what I saw, basically the only the only kind that actually creates its own burrows. But yeah, they also barn owls obviously roost and barnes. Um. A lot of owls are totally fine in the suburbs of the city or in parks. Um. I mean, it's not like you exactly live out in the country and you've got

owls in your backyard, you know, yeah, absolutely, uh. And one thing you were talking about, roadrunners a very fun thing to do if you ever have a few minutes, it's just Google or website search engine of your choice running owl and just look at these pictures of owls running on the ground. A lot of times they're little babies, which will see you know, sometimes where they can fly, they run. But it's my understanding that's one of the reasons.

Maybe the only reason they can turn that one talent around is if they're not you know, they don't need it to grasp on something. They can turn it around to run. And just this image of a barn of little baby barn right, it looks like a person in a little fuzzy suit. Yeah, because they stand up. Um, the barn owls in particular stand up pretty straight and

erect like people. And there was actually a viral video that a lot of dummies on the internet were like these are aliens where somebody had gone into their barn they found too baby barn owls that were standing there staring back at the camera and um, people were like, it's it's obviously alien. It's it's pretty famous video. Actually, it's worth looking up. I've probably seen it. Um. As far as their behavior, you did mention sleeping at night A lot of but not all of them. But a

lot of owls are nocturnal. That's the reason you're going to hear those hoodie hoots and in the evening time kind of when the sun's at the dusky time, when the sun's going down. I'm sorry, I have to ask, are you making outcast references when you say that? Say what hootie hoots? No? Okay, I wish I was. I love outcasts. Well let's just say you were the great. Uh. I was trying to make another outcast joke, but then I was just pushing it too far. There are hometown guys.

We love outcasts. Uh. Or sometimes in the middle of the night, I've been, like I said, woken up at the camp to some crazy owl activity. Uh. That's always funny year you know, to know they're nearby hunting and doing their thing. But there are They're not all nocturnal. Some are diurnal. Um. Some are crepuscular. That means they're active during dusk and dawn. Only I love hate that word crepuscular. It does sound kind of gross in a way, doesn't it. Yeah, for sure, crepuscular. There's a pus in

the middle of it. Yeah, it does sound kind of dirty. Yeah, and it doesn't even fit like you would never if you had no idea what crepuscular meant, you would never in intuitively be able to come up with that. Well, because you it doesn't sound like the other two. You've got nocturnal, diurnal, and then crepuscular. They really ran out of ideas that the word factory. It's very strange, but very efficient hunters at night. Uh, they fly almost completely

silently and all can really sneak up on a small rodent. Yeah, and you know they're they know the owls are around, so it's not like they're out there listening for the owls as well. But the owl has really adapted to just swoop down there in near silence and get a a squirrel or a rabbit of snake another owl they will hunt each other. Yeah, they're really kind of heartless hunters. The one thing I don't like about owls that they predate on other owl species. And do you want to

talk about how they fly silently? Now? Because I think it's a pretty good spot for it. Let's do it take it away. So they're really well known for that. Like I've never seen an owl fly um like in person um, but it must just be absolutely eerie to see something flying past you and not making a sound. And the reason that they do that is because their their wings and their feathers are basically made to muffle

and break up sound, like the leading edge. First of all, their wings are really broad, so they can they can soar more easily without flapping, so just you know, by virtue of not flapping as much, they're making less noise. And then the leading edge of their wings are serrated, kind of comb like, and that takes turbulence turbulences that air hitting the wing and going over the top of the wing, which makes a lot of noise. Anyone has

ever ridden an airplane can tell you that. But because it's serrated, it breaks that turbulence up into much smaller, more manageable micro turbulences. And then it takes those micro turbulences and passes them through the feathers, which further dampens everything. Right, that's right, Uh, they have those other soft feathers I guess sort of underneath. Is that the way to describe it. I think I think um like in the trailing end

behind them. So yeah, depending on where that if the owl is standing up with its wingspread, it'd be the bottom, if it's flying and be the rear okay uh. And they also can that shift that sound energy away and I think they it's basic lead. It's a sound, but it's a higher frequency so the prey can't hear it and presumably humans can't. And then their secondary feathers kind of do the same thing too, right, they're all like looking in concert whatever turbulence has made it through um

the feathers or over the feathers. The like the fact that owl feathers on the bottom or rear edge are tufted. There's kind of you know, tough to it the best way to put it. They actually break the turbulence up further. And they also there's down behind him, and the down absorbs any remaining sound, so like their wings just they don't they don't allow the owl to make sound as it's flying through the air. Yeah, And it's like you said, it's a big, broad wide wingspan motion. So when something

that large is moving, but it's quiet. Is it can be a little creepy, Yeah, I can imagine. And one of the things that also makes owls so incredibly amazing is that when they eat those rabbits or birds or squirrels, they um other birds of prey. Other raptors will kill them, usually with talents, and owls talents are amazingly strong, especially the great horned owls. Supposedly it can exert them as much force with its talents as the humans can maximally

with our bite. Um, it's pretty amazing. But they don't actually um kill the prey with the talents. From what I saw, they use their beak to basically kill the prey after capturing it. And then what they do after that is even more amazing. If you ask me, Chuck. Yeah, they they swallow if they can. If it's too big, they have to tear it into pieces. But if they

can manage it, they swallow it whole. And whatever they swallow, say it's a mouse, that little mouse goes to a temporary digestive organ called the proven triculus, and then it goes to the gizzard and then from there it you know, the gizzard digests whatever it can digest and then whatever it can't digest, like oh, I don't know, bones, let's say,

or fur or other feathers or whatever. Uh, it sort of just chills out down there for you know, up to ten hours, Like their digestive system is blocked for ten hours while this is happening, and it just you know, sort of squeezes it into a uh regurgitatable what they call a pellet, an altbellet. If you've ever heard of alt pellets. It's not poop or anything. They just hack back up like a bony hairball, almost of what they last ate, right, but they couldn't digest and absorb. It's

pretty cool. I think bony hairball could be. It's like if weird Al would have had a band at the beginning of this career instead of just a king a solo act, it probably would have been bony hairball. That's the only person who could have pulled that off to so um. So yeah, it's pretty amazing that owls just puke their undigestible parts of their food back up in a nice efficient it um. And when they catch food, if the hunting is like really really good, they might

not eat it immediately. They'll do what I remember alligators do. They'll basically go hide it. They stash it for a little while, and I think alligators did it to let the thing actually decay some so that they could pull it apart more easily. I get the impression owls aren't really doing that for that reason. They're they're just there's just such an embarrassment of riches as far as the hunting goes there, you know, stashing it away for a day or two and then coming back and eating it later.

I think I've seen al pellets in the woods and didn't know what they were. Did you pick it up and rub it between your fingers and sniff it and say, I don't know what this is? No, but I think there are times when I've seen a thing and I thought, Jesus that a dead mouse like it sure looks like it could be, but it's not shape like one. A giant thigh bone sticking out of it. I bet you anything, there's their al pellets. But you're going to be on

the lookout now. Yeah, And if you see a bunch of them together, there are um probably several hours owls nearby, because that means it's really good hunting ground. And owls tend to stay near hunting ground. So if you see a bunch of owl pellets, there's a bunch of owls around you, and you just probably look up and look closely and you'll see something that's right. Uh. And as far as their hunting goes, there's a few different methods. Uh. Some are a little lazier than others. I think I

would be a perch and pounce guy. And that's the thing here is exactly what it sounds like. They kind of hang out on their perch, do their thing. They look around with those I tubes and when they see something, and only when they see something are they gonna swoop down very silently and snatch it up. Yes, works pretty well. There's also quartering flight, which is I guess middling as far as exerting yourself goes. The owl just basically flies

around and looks for prey down below. And like we said, they have amazing binocular vision, so they they'll see something eventually and then again they swoop down and there goes the prey. Um. And then there's a third called helicoptering, which I think I mentioned at the very beginning of

the episode. Yeah, that's right. And um, that is the far and away the hardest way for them to hunt because they just basically hover over an area until they can locate the prey and then they swoop down and pouncing, and who knows how long they're going to have to helicopter. I actually couldn't find a video, Chuck. It looked really hard. But you know how when something happens, the Internet basically

pushes everything else out in favor of that one thing. Well, there is apparently a firefighting helicopter I think in California once. Um that was flying in the air and owl flew in and just perched itself inside the helicopter. So if you search owl helicoptering, that's all that comes up. Yeah.

I have seen birds of prey do this at the lake where they're circling above looking for fish, and then they will, uh, they will stop in place in helicopter for a moment, and that's when you know that they've locked in on something. And I mean that's amazing too, how a hawk can see a fish in the water a hundred feet below them. Yeah, and then they dive

and then grab the fish. And I always I don't laugh, but I always sort of joke about like what that must be like for the fish to be just swimming along underwater and seconds later be flying a hundred feet above the lake with, you know, being gripped by talents. Can you imagine what that does to your day? I know, I've I've I've thought about that many times, and you're right, it is hard not to laugh at it because it's

just so nuts and they're probably oh my god. Yeah, but at the same time, it's like, Okay, they're about to die, but they're being taken on the most thrilling experience. Yeah, at least they get to go out like that. But yeah, it's really it's sad to see like a like a fish just flip flipping back and forth, not like furiously, it's more just like kind of anxiously flipping back and forth,

like what's going on? Almost like if it were a person, it would be it's the equivalent person like sitting in a corner with their knees up to their chest, rocking back and forth. That's that's the motion that those fish make when they're in the talents. Yeah, and I've also seen them drop said fish and swoop down and grab it out of the air. Which is also very impressive. Wow,

that's just that's playing with really quite a show. But the owl back to the owls, they, like you said, they do have those sharp talents, and they spend you know, they spend a lot of their time hunting. It's uh. When they're not hunting, they're generally resting or you know, roosting, which is resting. And most of the time they'll roost alone, but sometimes they share space. Um owls, you know, they

can kind of mix it up a little bit. They're generally loaners, but they can also hang out around other owls, especially in like breeding season, they may hang around a little more near other owls. Yeah, they it's called a communal roost um. And there there are some advantages, Like you said, during breeding season, it's easier to find a mate. Um. If it's cold out, it's much easier to stay warm in a small little area with a bunch of other owls. Um.

They apparently will trade information about hunting grounds nearby. And I'm I don't know how they do that. I didn't see how, but I thought that was pretty awesome. And then also they like the more owls there are, the less likely the owls are to be mobbed by other birds. Yeah, and that's the thing. It didn't surprise me it happened owls because I've also seen this at the lake with

hawks and uh and uh falcons. When you see one of them coming up on a nest like looking for some eggs or baby birds, they will be attacked by tiny little birds. They will just come after them basically and just say, there's a lot of us. We can fly in a lot like quicker zigzaggy patterns, and they just they kind of swarm them and intimidate and confuse and just try and drive them away. Basically. They're like,

you're like being harassed. Yeah, I'm not touching you. It's pretty cool to see because you know, these big giant birds of prey, it's kind of interesting that they can be thwarted by, you know, a gang of tenacious little birds. It is it's it's just so heartwarming to see that because it's I don't think I've ever seen it unsuccessful, have you, Like it always works now. It seems like they're always like, all right, fine, I'm out of here.

Very well. If you're going to be like that about me eating your children, we've gotta take a fish on the ride of his life. Right, you want to take our second break and come back about and talk about making new owls. Sure, I thought you're gonna say making love, but same thing. Yeah, Oh okay, Chuck, It's time to talk about owl lovemaking. UM. And one of the things that you are hearing, like you said, in the woods, when you're hearing a bunch of crazy owl calls, are

owls trying to attract a mate. That's one that basically that and defense are the two reasons that they call. From what we can tell, UM, and males will sit there and call through the woods. Because of the frequency of their calls, it's really easy for it to just travel right through vegetation, so it can travel really long distances. UM. And then females of that same species will listen out and return the call to males of her species and

they might get something going from that point on. Yeah, And like a lot of animals, the males can do a very elaborate sort of courting. Dan's and you know, lots of it's what you might think, a lot of flapping, a lot of sort of chess beating, a lot of diving and climbing, and hey, look at me like I can do all this stuff. They call it a sky dance. And then eventually that mail will um you know, wind up in the grasses on the ground and just say

what do you think ladies. Uh, My good friend Mike Rino made this incredible video where he records I don't know if he recorded or got recordings of um owl mating calls. I guess he knew he had a randy owl in his backyard and he put this speaker on his deck. And he's a cameraman in the film business, so I'm not sure what he shot at with. But he had a slow motion camera rig going and he got a owl diving onto the speaker in slow motion on his deck and it's one of the most incredible

cool shots I've ever seen. And he was like, yeah, it's just like one afternoon. Uh, and he and he made it happen. It's very very cool. I mean, he put it on his Facebook years ago. But I'll have to I'll text it and get it and send it to you, Okay from Okay God, thanks man. Yeah, or maybe he'll give you permission to put on the stuff you should know Instagram or something. Yeah. One of the things that I thought was really cool is if that owl had been able to mate with your friends speaker,

they would have stayed together potentially for life. I love you so right. At the very least, the owl, the male owl would have stuck around for a year throughout the breeding cycle. At the very least, um they are they help um raise the eggs in then later on the hatchlings and the nestlings, which is pretty cool. I think it is cool. Uh. And those mothers might lay I mean average five or six eggs, but they could lay up to ten or eleven eggs over a few days.

And it really kind of depends on if they're if it's if they think it's a successful area. There's a lot of food around, they think these little outlets might might survive that then they will have more eggs, which is pretty remarkable in itself. And she stays with those eggs until they hatch takes about twenty four to thirty two days and doesn't leave the male. It is kind

of sweet. Go gets food and brings it back to the mom so she can eat, although she does lose a little bit of weight because she's probably not eating like she usually does. And then one of my favorite words in nature, the egg tooth is how the little baby outlets cracked themselves out. And then there I guess little fledglings at that point, right. Yeah, There's one other thing before they hatch that I thought was cool. The

mom loses the feathers on her belly. She can transfer heat from her body to the eggs more efficiently, which I thought was really cool. So I'm sure she loses weight because she's generating so much heat, Like her metabolism must just go through the roof. That makes sense. So yeah, So the little owl it's hatch, and depending on the species, they are super duper cute or else they are horrific. The barn owls in particular horrifying to look at for

the first several days before they get feathers. Any baby bird without feathers is not really pleasant to see, but the barn owls in particular are really rough. Um. But then once they start to get those fluffy, little downy feathers there, they begin to be adorable. But for the first like at least couple of weeks, they are totally helpless, eyes closed, Um, they can't fend for themselves in any way. They can't fly, and then more to the point, they

can't thermoregulate, so they can't keep themselves warm. They're still totally dependent on their mom to keep them warm and keep them from freezing to death. And then finally, once they cross that threshold where they can thermoregulate on their own, they start to like literally branch out from the nest. Yeah,

and this it didn't take too long. It's about a week, right, or a little under couple couple of weeks, Okay, So eventually those eyes will open and those little white, downy feathers become a little more gray and brown and uh functional most importantly. But yeah, they'll do two things. They will, uh some of them will go nest on the ground, but the ones who the nestlings who stay in the trees, they will just literally go to a branch that's nearby

and they'll hang out and they wait to fly. The ones on the ground kind of cover themselves up in the grasses and stuff until they can fly, because they're very obviously, very vulnerable at this point. And I imagine any other bird of prey that's sort of wide open for them, right, Yeah, yeah, for sure. But because of this, if you find an owl or outlet, I should say on the ground, Um, don't don't take it home, because it hasn't been abandoned. It's probably out exploring um or

something were branching. Yeah, just leave it. Not only leave it, um if you can put it in like either a low branch or some we're on a shrub and the mom will come back for it. Because I know we've talked about this before somewhere, but handling a bird doesn't cause the mother bird to abandon it. It's an old wives sale. Yeah, just leave the bird there, you know, or put it in a little branch or something, and it will be taken care of from that point on. Yeah.

I mean my advice has always to just let it alone. Um. But if it's looks like it's in harm's way, or if you just can't resist picking up the baby outlet and then and say I'm going to move it because it's not safe, wink wink, And then just get a little little scritch scratch of those downy feathers. Just don't do it for long, right, and try and leave it alone, maybe just long enough to go I love you so much.

What if the owl said I love you too? There's one other cool thing about baby owls too, right, because of the size of their heads. Uh, I don't know, they're Okay, they're they're cute. They are cute. Here's another rival for fact of the podcast. Because baby owl heads are so big, disproportionate or proportionately to their body. Um. They don't sleep sitting up, laying down on their bellies, and they look a lot like little baby puppies sleeping. Um,

and some of them will. Actually I've seen a picture of a baby owl spluting, like on its belly, spread eagle on on the ground. It's really really cute to see. Yeah, Okay, what do you call it? I don't know, because it's funny when dogs do it. Uh, what do I call that? I don't know what we call it. I'll have to ask Emily, And I think we've got a word for it. Okay, Well, let us know report back, because spluts what I've always gone with. Yeah, I mean, I think every family has

her own name for that stuff, right. Sure are you saying that splut is like a scientific term. I don't know if it's scientific, but I feel like it's widespread. I don't think it to be coined. It or anything like that. Oh you never know, you mean's quite clever. She is pretty it's the words stuff she says spreads on the internet like wildfire. I believe it, all right, So let's hear that's the email I want? Is what

do you call an animal? And you know what we're talking about, like a froggy like frog's legs spread on the ground. Ye. All right, So humans, like we said, we love owls. It seems like humans have always been fascinated. Uh, they're very famous. Uh was it the Chuvat Cave in France with all those amazing cave paintings from twenty tho years ago? There is very distinctly an owl drawn, and you know whether it's ancient Greece. Uh, it's just people

have always been fascinated with owls, I think. Uh. One reason is there can be very useful, Like if you're a farmer, you want owls around, you know, for pest control. Yeah. Apparently a single barn owl will eat um fifty pounds of gophers in a year. That's a lot of gophers, because the gopher doesn't a pound. That's a ton of gophers. And then a single barn owl family will eat about

three thousand rodents in a four month breeding cycle. And so not only is that like natural and you know, circle of life kind of stuff, the farmer can feel good about that. They'll also save on poison, which is a problem not just for the rodents that the farmer's poison, but for the owls that eat the poison rodents. There's a lot of owls that have died incidentally because farmers have used poison bait on their roads to try to control rodents. If you've got owls, you don't have to

worry about rodents. So farmers heart owls, that's right, And owls and humans generally hard each other. Uh but I did you know, back when I was on social media years ago, I remember seeing more than one neighborhood boast about joggers being attacked by owls in the neighborhood. And so I looked it up today and it it definitely happens on the rag. Uh. They say, if you're out for an only morning jog um, maybe don't have a

ponytail flopping. Tuck your hair up in a hat because people there are a lot of reports no one's ever been like, you know, you might get a little scratched up, so it's not like a fatal thing or anything like that. He probably won't even get injured. But those owls are big, and to have one scratching at your head briefly even is probably pretty scary. Yeah, for sure, those crepuscular owls sound like they're trouble. But what's the deal with the

wisdom and the owls? Because that's the thing. Since I was a little kid, you always associated owls with having a little graduation cap on right, exactly like the one from the Tusty roll pop commercials or owl from Winning the pooh Um. So there's two schools of thought, and

they're not necessarily even mutually exclusive. But one is that the Archaic Greeks about three thousand years ago are the first ones to attribute wisdom to owls by pairing them with Athena, who was one of Zeus's waters and a goddess of wisdom, and her favorite companion was an owl. So that some people say, there you go, that's it.

Other people say, actually, I wonder if people just looked at owls and saw their giant eyes that make them look very intelligent and said that is a very intelligent animal, And maybe that's actually what gave birth to pairing Athena with the owl in the first place. Who knows. Yeah, I mean, if you've looked at an owl in the face, it feels like they they they are deep thinkers at the very least. But owls, as far as birds go, are medium smart. Is that fair? Yeah, let's say, not

super intelligent, not the dumbest B minus students. Maybe sure, they're like they're like I was. I was a beast student. I would say, oh, yeah, good for you. Where were you be minus? I was seized a lot of times. And yeah, not until I got to college did I really started selling. Yeah. I made as and bs in high school generally, Oh wow, man, I looked up to people like, you know, you didn't you didn't because I did.

I would just yeah, I would kind of like hang back and watch you from afar creepily in the library during lunch. Is that you? Yeah? All right, I never knew that was you. That's totally me. Um, yeah, we've known each other for way longer than you realize. Um, that's very creepy. So it's not just the archaic Greeks and us you know alive today that said, you know, owls are very wise or there's something about owls. There's

tons of superstitions around the world. And in fact, the Romans said an owl foreshadowed the death of Julius Caesar very famously. I didn't see how like maybe it flew into the Senate or it said like like Caesar lookal or something, but it's very much associated with the death of Caesar. Yeah, and I think a lot of different cultures have different owl sort of folklore, like if if an owl visit you in a dream, like this might happen.

I think different cultures think different things about owls, but I think it's usually like bad luck, right, Yeah, it depends. The Hindu culture says that that the owl has something to do with Lakshmi, the goddess, and so the owl is a symbol of luck. But you know, like apaches Um said that if you dream of an owl, you're probably going to die. Um. Yeah, it's kind of all

over the place. And it makes sense that so many different cultures would have owl superstitions is because they've been around for so long and they're spread all over the world, so so many cultures have interacted with owls and just fallen under their spell. I love it. Shunt me as one me too. I got one other thing, Chuck. There are owl cafes in Japan and you can go to them and hang out with owls, and I've done that, and I did that in Tokyo and it's one of

the coolest things I've ever done. And upon researching this, I found that you are not supposed to do that. Writing an elephant kind of been in a different way. Like owls are super sociable. They're totally chilled with humans. They're not scared or anything like that, and they're generally treated well. But most owl species are nocturnal, and you're going to the owl cafe during the day in most cases, so they're forcing the owls to You're making the owl

stay awake when it otherwise would normally be sleeping. And that's not good for anybody. I got you, So I'm sorry to all the owls. I just wanted to confess that it's very big of you. Thank you. Uh Well, since Chuck said that's very big of me, I say it's time for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this correction on the vasectomes epp uh and a pretty important one. Oh, yeah, yeah, Yeah, I'm glad you're doing this. I know we got this

right on the condom episode, but here we go. Hey, guys, in the episode, you compared vasectomes to other birth control uh. And although vasectomes are amazingly effective, I think your statement underestimates the effective effectiveness of other birth controlled methods. You talk about condoms as affect them effective, meaning there's a fifteen percent chance of getting pregnant every time you use

a condom. However, birth control effectiveness is calculated by like likelihood getting pregnant over a year using only that method. If there was really a fifteen percent chance getting pregnant every time you used a condom, the compounded chance of getting pregnant over one year would be almost a percent. Uh. I guess that's if you're, you know, living your best life. Sure,

such a huge fan of the podcast. As a regent, as recently graduated bioengineer, I couldn't pass up this opportunity to share the knowledge of probability and science on an issue I deeply care about. Thanks for all the amazing shows over the years. That is from Mina and we heard from a lot of people on this and I know that was just sort of a what I call a verbal typo because we know that condoms are. It's more like it's like effective, right. I I was totally

seduced by that that status, so I bought it. Fully, I'm not even going to play that's okay. Yeah, we have a episode on condoms where we where we get it right. Yeah. I wonder how many people are like, I'm not using those things anymore because over the course of the year, there's almost a chance of becoming pregnant. Oh I don't know about that. Well, thanks a lot, Mina and everybody else who wrote in. That was a really important one. And Chuck, I'm glad you chose that

one for a listener mail. And if you want to be like Mina and tell us something very important, we love that kind of stuff. You can send it to us in an email to Stuff podcast at I heart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.