A Stare of Owls

A collection of owls is called 'a stare' or 'a parliament'.

THERE are 200 species of owls and they are found everywhe2re except Antarctica. They live in all kinds of habitats.

The largest species are the great grey owl of North America, the Blakiston’s fish owl of eastern Russia and the Eurasian eagle owl—standing about 70 to 84 cm tall and with a wingspan ranging from 1.7 to 2 metres.

The elf owl of south-western USA tips the scales at 30 grams, about the weight of a CD. The northern pygmy owl, the northern saw-whet owl and the burrowing owl are also diminutive.

The elf owl sometimes nests in holes made by other animals in the giant saguaro cactus.

All Eyes

An owl’s eyes are its most arresting feature. They are huge, making up about 3 per cent of its whole body weight. (Our eyes are 0.0003% of our body weight.)

The eyes are tube-shaped structures (not spherical). They are held in place by rigid bones called sclerotic rings. So owls can’t roll their eyes. Instead, to look around them, they have to move their heads. It’s a myth that owls can turn their necks 360°. The maximum is still an astonishing 270°. Owls have excellent distance vision but poor near vision. Sensitive hairlike feathers around their beaks and feet help them ‘feel’ objects that are too near to be seen clearly. Owls also have amazing binocular vision, the ability to use both their frontfacing eyes to get a single threedimensional image.

All owls see very well in the dark, but not all owls are nocturnal! Some pygmy owls, burrowing owls and snowy owls are either diurnal or crepuscular. Great horned owls have the largest eyes.