Owls (Mead)

You thought owls were bemused intellectuals? In fact they are deadly killing machines, with terrifying talons (as Chris Mead can personally attest), advanced 'earsight' and cunningly silent flight. You thought they only flew at night? In fact, the Short-eared generally hunts in daytime. You believed owls just lived in woodland? Wrong again, the Little Owl lives in park- or farmland, most Barn Owls prefer moorland and pasture and the Short-eared likes the wide open spaces of moorland or coastal marshes. Tawnies also live in most of our cities. Owls reveals all sorts of curious and unexpected facts about our five British owls and some oddities about foreign ones-such as the unique fishing owls of Africa and southern Asia and the burrowing American owls who live underground. The female owl seems pretty clever, she rates her partner's performance in bringing her food to see how good a hunter he is before deciding how many eggs to lay. Despite their (usually) nocturnal habits, owls are fruitful subjects of study, as they obligingly deposit regurgitated pellets for interested humans: dissecting these can provide a skeletal jigsaw puzzle of information about what the owl has eaten and what small mammals live in the area-though the student may need a macabre home reference library of bones to identify the prey. Chris Mead gives helpful suggestions of how to observe and count your local owls and also how to assist in protecting them, since owl numbers (particularly of Barn Owls) are on the decline. Tempting though it may be to pick up and adopt fluffy baby owls, it is not advisable; better to construct nest-boxes and protect their environment.

Author: Chris Mead
Publisher: Whittet Books
Extra Details: Pictorial Card Covers 6 x 9 inches tall, Lavishly illustrated with B&W artworks throughout.