From Izzy Edwards
Female Barn Owl on the left has tan breast plumage with many spots, male (on the right) has paler breast in comparison with little to no spotting.
Most owls we can’t tell apart visually, but Barn Owls are one that we often can.
Do you favor the design of one or the other? I like the spots on Ms Owl, though Mr does have the whitest of white feathers… 🤔
Maybe an uneducated observation, but doesn’t the male show more nose? You can’t see the nostrils on female at all. Is that an indicator of gender or just random?
Good observation! I think that is just random. Owls have a lot of voluntary muscle control over their feathers, especially on their face. They can move the facial feathers like a fine tuning control to hear different sounds better.
Here is a male with less visible nares (nostrils) and a female where you can mostly see them.
They’re both very beautiful… Honestly, I can’t pick a favourite! Mr Owl does look a little naked LOL but I respect his nudist persuasion.
I lean lady owl. She’s got more decorations, and being a lady owl, she’s also about 20% bigger, so you get more owl overall.
More owl per owl? Count me in.
Yes, indeed! Most lady raptors are the larger ones.
Respectable choice! Can’t go wrong with picking the higher owl-count.
I really like the difference in their Expression. The girl looks calm, almost friendly. The guy is a bit aggressive, like: “Wtf, leave me be stinky human”
huh i read it completely different in their expression. one on the right looks super excited and happy, while the one on the left looks calm but a litle annoyed
I always enjoy hearing everyone’s interpretations of these photos. This is a good example of how anthropomorphizing can be dangerous when trying to understand wild animals. Just because something looks one way to us may not necessarily be how it is for the animals on the other end.
One of the challenges when I work with wild animals is that no matter how much time and effort we spend to take care of them, them hating us at the end is a sign that they are healthy and have recovered properly.
Thats funny! No wonder it is so easy to misunderstand each other :-D But it is always very interesting for me to hear about other peoples perception, it gives me opportunities to learn a lot.
The lady appreciates her new jewelry while the guy is stays what his bros are going to say about him and his lady wearing matching bracelets.
I wonder if there are markings on there in infra/ultra wavelengths that they can see but we can’t.
Different birds are able to see past our visible light spectrum on both ends, but owls don’t seem to have all that much conclusive research on the subject.
I skimmed this paper, it’s got a lot of things I don’t understand, and it sounds like owls gave up a lot of the cones in their eyes for more rods. The cones are normally what detects UV light, but despite them not having the same cones as other birds, they still were leaning to owls having some degree of ability to see UV. The extent of that ability seemed to vary between the 4 species they looked at though, so it may exist for some owls and not others. Different owls are active at different times of day, so there could be quite a bit of variance, especially with near 250 species. Someone more understanding of the subject could probably make much more sense of the data provided here than I could though.
I didn’t have time to look much through this either, but there are also people that suspect barn owls of picking up some type of bioluminescent fungus from trees that gets on their feathers making them luminous, even potentially being the inspiration for mythical things like Will o’ the Whisps. Seemed interesting if one has the time.
I think they’re both beautiful ❤️
I can’t argue with that. I’ve even come to love their delightful voices! 😁
Ms Owl’s “beard” looks good on her!
I agree! She’s probably a big hit with dwarven ladies too.
Toasted and Untoasted Goblin Puffs
