November 10, 2022 • 51 mins
It’s time for another great animal episode and in this one we swoop into the world of owls – nature’s greatest silent predator who (hooo) also look very cute and intelligent. Not to mention they can turn their heads 270 degrees.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
and there's Chuck and Jerry's helicoptering around or perched nearby.
All that will make sense in a little bit. And
this is stuff you should know. Bird of prey a
(00:24):
dish yeah, raptors and one of my favorite birds, a
dish yeah. Mine to love me. Some owls. We get
very excited here at the cent of Bryant House whenever
we get to see some owl action in the backyard.
(00:45):
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
(01:10):
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
(01:31):
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
(01:51):
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
(02:11):
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.
(02:33):
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
(02:55):
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.
(03:16):
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
(03:36):
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
(03:57):
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,
(04:19):
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
(04:43):
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
(05:03):
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
(05:24):
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
(05:45):
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
(06:09):
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
(06:29):
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,
(06:52):
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,
(07:12):
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
(07:33):
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
(07:56):
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
(08:17):
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.
(08:39):
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
(09:00):
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,
(09:24):
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
(09:45):
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,
(10:08):
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
(10:30):
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
(10:53):
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.
(11:15):
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
(11:36):
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
(11:56):
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
(12:18):
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.
(12:39):
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
(13:03):
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
(13:23):
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
(13:43):
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
(14:04):
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
(14:24):
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
(14:45):
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
(15:22):
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,
(15:50):
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
(16:12):
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
(16:34):
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
(16:57):
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
(17:20):
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?
(17:42):
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
(18:03):
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,
(18:25):
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
(18:47):
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.
(19:07):
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,
(19:28):
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
(19:49):
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
(20:10):
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
(20:32):
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
(20:53):
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
(21:17):
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.
(21:43):
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.
(22:05):
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,
(22:26):
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
(22:47):
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
(23:09):
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.
(23:30):
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,
(23:53):
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
(24:14):
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
(24:37):
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
(24:57):
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
(25:18):
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
(25:39):
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,
(26:01):
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
(26:22):
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,
(26:44):
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
(27:09):
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
(27:30):
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
(27:50):
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
(28:13):
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
(28:36):
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
(28:59):
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.
(29:20):
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.
(29:41):
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,
(30:03):
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.
(30:23):
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
(30:45):
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
(31:07):
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
(31:31):
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,
(31:56):
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
(32:17):
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,
(32:39):
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,
(33:00):
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.
(33:21):
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
(33:44):
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
(34:05):
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
(34:26):
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,
(34:49):
but same thing. Yeah, Oh okay, Chuck, It's time to
(35:14):
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
(35:36):
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
(35:57):
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
(36:19):
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,
(36:41):
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
(37:05):
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,
(37:26):
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
(37:49):
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
(38:10):
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
(38:32):
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
(38:53):
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
(39:16):
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.
(39:37):
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,
(39:58):
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,
(40:21):
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,
(40:41):
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
(41:03):
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
(41:25):
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.
(41:46):
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.
(42:09):
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
(42:30):
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
(42:51):
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
(43:14):
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
(43:34):
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,
(43:58):
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,
(44:21):
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
(44:44):
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
(45:06):
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
(45:29):
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
(45:50):
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
(46:10):
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,
(46:32):
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
(46:54):
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
(47:15):
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
(47:35):
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
(47:58):
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
(48:19):
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
(48:42):
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.
(49:04):
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
(49:25):
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,
(49:48):
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
(50:12):
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,
(50:33):
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
(50:55):
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.
(51:18):
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
(51:40):
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.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
and there's Chuck and Jerry's helicoptering around or perched nearby.
All that will make sense in a little bit. And
this is stuff you should know. Bird of prey a
(00:24):
dish yeah, raptors and one of my favorite birds, a
dish yeah. Mine to love me. Some owls. We get
very excited here at the cent of Bryant House whenever
we get to see some owl action in the backyard.
(00:45):
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
(01:10):
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
(01:31):
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
(01:51):
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
(02:11):
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.
(02:33):
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
(02:55):
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.
(03:16):
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
(03:36):
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
(03:57):
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,
(04:19):
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
(04:43):
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
(05:03):
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
(05:24):
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
(05:45):
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
(06:09):
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
(06:29):
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,
(06:52):
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,
(07:12):
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
(07:33):
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
(07:56):
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
(08:17):
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.
(08:39):
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
(09:00):
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,
(09:24):
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
(09:45):
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,
(10:08):
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
(10:30):
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
(10:53):
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.
(11:15):
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
(11:36):
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
(11:56):
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
(12:18):
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.
(12:39):
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
(13:03):
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
(13:23):
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
(13:43):
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
(14:04):
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
(14:24):
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
(14:45):
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
(15:22):
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,
(15:50):
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
(16:12):
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
(16:34):
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
(16:57):
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
(17:20):
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?
(17:42):
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
(18:03):
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,
(18:25):
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
(18:47):
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.
(19:07):
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,
(19:28):
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
(19:49):
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
(20:10):
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
(20:32):
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
(20:53):
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
(21:17):
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.
(21:43):
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.
(22:05):
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,
(22:26):
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
(22:47):
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
(23:09):
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.
(23:30):
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,
(23:53):
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
(24:14):
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
(24:37):
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
(24:57):
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
(25:18):
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
(25:39):
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,
(26:01):
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
(26:22):
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,
(26:44):
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
(27:09):
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
(27:30):
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
(27:50):
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
(28:13):
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
(28:36):
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
(28:59):
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.
(29:20):
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.
(29:41):
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,
(30:03):
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.
(30:23):
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
(30:45):
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
(31:07):
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
(31:31):
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,
(31:56):
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
(32:17):
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,
(32:39):
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,
(33:00):
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.
(33:21):
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
(33:44):
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
(34:05):
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
(34:26):
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,
(34:49):
but same thing. Yeah, Oh okay, Chuck, It's time to
(35:14):
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
(35:36):
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
(35:57):
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
(36:19):
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,
(36:41):
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
(37:05):
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,
(37:26):
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
(37:49):
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
(38:10):
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
(38:32):
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
(38:53):
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
(39:16):
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.
(39:37):
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,
(39:58):
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,
(40:21):
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,
(40:41):
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
(41:03):
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
(41:25):
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.
(41:46):
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.
(42:09):
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
(42:30):
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
(42:51):
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
(43:14):
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
(43:34):
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,
(43:58):
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,
(44:21):
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
(44:44):
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
(45:06):
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
(45:29):
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
(45:50):
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
(46:10):
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,
(46:32):
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
(46:54):
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
(47:15):
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
(47:35):
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
(47:58):
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
(48:19):
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
(48:42):
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.
(49:04):
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
(49:25):
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,
(49:48):
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
(50:12):
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,
(50:33):
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
(50:55):
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.
(51:18):
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
(51:40):
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.
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Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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