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15-AUG-2008

Soggy & miserable

Perthshire, Scotland

The Barn Owl has amazing hearing & its heart-shaped facial disc channels sound into its very sensitive assymmetric ears. Essentially it is a mobile acoustic rodent surveyance system & very effective it is too. BUT to be effective the owl must avoid producing any sound from its own plumage. Barn Owls have very soft body feathering which produces no appreciable noise in flight. The big price Barn Owls pay for this adaption is that their body-feathering lacks any real water-repellance properties & so they struggle to hunt in rain. Even short periods of hunting in wet grass leads to soaked ventral feathering & possible hypothermia.

Canon EOS 1D Mark II
1/250s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso640 full exif

other sizes: small medium original auto
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vicente machado 10-Dec-2009 19:03
Owl with a human face...
Impressive.
Mike Jarvis 10-Jun-2009 00:23
Very interesting, I didn't realize that Barn Owls feathers lack water repellance. Than you, and great photo too.
Guest 18-Jan-2009 17:24
Verry nice shot!
Derek Bews25-Dec-2008 15:16
What a beautiful picture - ten out of ten! Voted!
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