From Harold Wilion

Things Are Looking Up

Kind of a weird night. These owls have been extremely unpredictable this year. Looking at my photos from last year, almost every night I could find an owl in one hole or another, and then after getting the hole shot, the challenge was to get some perch shots when one flew. I’ve been coming here for weeks now this year, often without even seeing an owl at all. And when I was lucky enough to get some shots, it was always on a perch, and I haven’t seen one in a hole the entire fall. Finally, last night I was able to get a hole shot, but couldn’t find her when she flew.

But what was really strange, in the twenty minutes after she popped up out of the hole, the entire time she kept gazing upward into the sky, not making for the kind of poses I really like. Out of that entire 20 minutes, there were maybe a total of 20 seconds where she wasn’t fixated on the sky. Who knows, maybe she saw a hawk flying around earlier, or she was looking for her mate, I have no idea.

      • anon6789@lemmy.worldOP
        3·
        19 hours ago

        I do wonder what they think about. I try to trick the owls into thinking I’ve gone away by hiding behind the wall of the aviary and peeping through the cracks, trying not to make any noise, but I’m pretty sure they can still see me and even hear me breath and just moving my foot to stay balanced. They stare at where I am and move their heads around to really tune in on the sounds I make without even noticing. But now and then, they will stop and just look off somewhere else for a bit.

        They’re scared of us and don’t want to be around us. I imagine it’s like if we were in the water with a shark swimming around. With me being purposefully sneaky, I would think that would make them even a bit more suspicious of me. I’m not sure what would make me look away from a shady shark swimming around me, but it would have to be something pretty intriguing. They go back to staring at the space I’m occupying, so it’s not like they’ve forgotten I’m there…

        After reading the owl sleep study and seeing they are only really active in the imaginative/creative center of their brain maybe 2-5% of the total time they are asleep, perhaps they are just more prone to daydreams so they can work those more obscure parts of their mind while they’re still awake and alert?

        I sure do spend a lot of time thinking about these birds! 🤪