BOTW 12/4 - 12/8
Barn bird
This week’s bird is the: Barn Owl
Disclaimer: This bird is a rerun from 2021
Fact 1: Barn Owls like barns. Seriously, they like to live in barns. Also church steeples, other barn-like structures and sometimes trees (if they are hippy owls…)
Fact 2: Barn Owls like rats/mice. It goes along with the whole liking-barns thing. Have a rat/mouse problem? Step 1) Build a barn. Step 2) attract a Barn Owl. Step 3) Mission Accomplished
Fact 3: These birds are like reverse-birders. They can identify the type of prey by their sounds. Take that, Merlin Sound ID
Fact 4: It would not be fun to be eaten by this owl. They eat their prey whole but “those too large to swallow are eaten piecemeal with heads…occasionally discarded.”* Gruesome stuff, man.
Fact 5: The sounds this bird make are so horrifying, I refuse to attach a link here. If you want to hear a naturally-created horror movie noise, you can look it up.
Have a wonderful week!
*Quote from Birds of the World account of the Barn Owl
Haha, gotta love fact 3. Although, I do love using Merlin... I’m getting better without it, though!
Thanks Ben! I love barn owls.
We have one who flies around our home and even sometimes over our garden. The thrill of seeing him (in my mind he's a male but who knows) never wanes.
I wrote about him once here.
https://janellehardacre.substack.com/p/my-neighbour-the-barn-owl?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
I'm happy to carry on living for now without knowing what he sounds like!