owlflight

I used to be afraid of owls. But then one time we were at a place called Bort Meadow sitting in our van, and then we saw an owl fly by. And seeing it made me not afraid of them because it looked so beautiful when it was flying. And God made me not afraid of owls. It was so big that I think it was a great horned owl. One day later we saw a great horned owl at Bort Meadow. We were walking at night time looking for owls and we heard one across the field. It sounded like "who-who-whooo. who. who." It was in an oak tree. And then we walked across the field and saw it sitting on a low branch and took this picture. And then he flew off his branch and he chased a little bird and squawked twice.

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Owls of the East Bay

How do owls fly?

What makes lift?
High pressure air empties into low pressure air. There is lift when there is a wing in the way. Fast moving air makes low pressure air. An airfoil makes fast moving air because there is a hump in the front and the air has to go over the hump. The slower moving air underneath doesn't have to go over a hump.

What are two ways air moves over a wing?
Moving the wing through the air is called propulsion. Moving air past the wing is called gliding.

How does flapping make lift and thrust?
A bird's wings make forward thrust by flapping up and down but the their primary feathers (the end of their wings) reaches forward and pushes down and backward on the air. A bird's wings make lift by pushing down on the air.

How does gliding make lift and thrust?
The bird has wings and weight. The bird jumps from a high place or soars up high in a thermal. Gravity pulls the bird down and gives it speed. That speed is the thrust. Because it's moving through the air, it gets lift since its wings are airfoils.

How does a bird turn and stop?
It sticks up feathers. That stops the smooth flow of the air over the wings. That is called turbulence. Wherever the feathers stick up the turbulence makes less lift. Owls have silent flight because their primary feathers are very soft on the front. That makes the air go quietly through little channels.

Tell me what you learned about bird flight from the movie "Winged Migration".
I saw geese flying. The geese were fast and big. The tops of their bodies would move up and down every time they flapped. Their wings flapped up and down but the ends of their wings pushed down and back on the air. Their bodies jumped up and down a little bit but their heads stayed still. They ran before they took off. Their feet were stretched out behind their bodies. One time in the movie, a lady came out when there were cranes in the field and she fed them bread. One time a stork landed on the other one's back. There was a bald eagle. It was sitting on a tree branch and some geese came flying and it looked over at them.

One time we were driving on a little road with a ridge and a great horned owl flew down to the road from a low branch and flew up into the bushes. We saw it at the same spot a few times. One time we went to the A's baseball game and when we were walking out to our car after being at the game and we saw a barn owl flying above the parking lot lights. We saw it for about a minute. It was kind of light brown. I saw its face. It had a big round facial disk and it had little black dots for eyes. And we thanked God for letting us see the barn owl.

One time I went to Redwood Park and we heard a screech. At first we thought it was a mom calling her kid named "Fred". But then we heard it again and knew it was an owl. We looked in our book and figured out by the call that it was a female short eared owl. We waited for awhile and then daddy pointed it out sitting on a low branch. We saw it three different nights. The next time we saw it for about ten minutes and we had a tape recorder recording its sound. We ended up naming the one field Fred Field because its call sounded like somebody shouting the name "Fred".

Huge Round Heads - Their huge round heads have giant eyes. Their heads can turn all the way around and their heads can turn upside down.
Giant Eyes - They need to be able to see in the dark because they come out at night to look for mice and rats. Their eyes are usually yellow with black dots in the middle.
Weird Ears - Their ears are only little slits on the sides of their head and they are covered up by feathers. One slit is longer and higher than the other so that they can figure out exactly where their food is.
No Nests - Owls don't have nest of their own but they steal nests from other birds.
Big Sharp Talons - They catch their food and fight with their sharp talons. Their talons are sharper than other birds because the stab and crush mice and rats.
Flat Facial Disk - The front of their face is called a facial disk. The facial disks on owls are bigger, rounder, and flatter than on other birds because they can hear better with these.
Coughing Up Pellets - Pellets are little bunches of fur and bones that they cough up out of their stomachs. It's kind of like throwing up. I've seen pellets once. They are light colored. I saw bones, fur, mice skulls.
Silent Flyers - They have to be silent flyers to catch their prey. They're not really fast flyers because they have short and fat wings. There is a little fur on the leading edge of the primary feathers and that makes them silent flyers.
Ear Tufts - Ear tufts aren't really owls ears. They are tufts of feathers on the top of their head. Nobody knows that well what they are for. If somebody touches them the owl gets mad! Mad! MAD!

Barn Owl

Short-Eared Owl

Northern Saw-Whet Owl

Western Screech Owl

Great Horned Owl

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