this owl is an ambush hunter. what makes her so deadly? she’s not the fastest, but she has a different advantage. it's stealth, not speed that makes her lethal. compare this owl to a falcon. both animals are birds of prey. but they havereally different strategies when it comes to hunting. the falcon hunts when it's light out. he’s incredibly fast. some falcons fly upto 200 miles per hour.
they don’t need to be quiet. by the time their prey hears them it’s alreadytoo late. but owls have another strategy. they hunt under the cover of darkness. they’resneaky. she has incredibly powerful night-vision. and she can zero in on the location of eventhe smallest noise. air rushes over her wings as she flies. in most birds, that’s noisy. but with owls,there’s almost no flapping sound, no rustling. it’s... quiet.
up close, you can see how she does it. her feathers are velvety, soft. that furriness lets the feathers slip quietlypast each other during flight… dampen sound like a soft blanket. compare that to a falcon feathers. they’re sleek and aerodynamic, but noisyas they slice through the air. and here’s another thing. see those projections along the leading edgeof the owl’s wing... like a pointy comb? those break up the wind as it flows over thetop of the wing
the feathers at the trailing edge of the wingbreak up the wind even more. compared to a falcon, these feathers lookkind of jagged, right? but that jaggedness means almost no whooshingsound that would alert their prey. and overall... owl wings are bigger, widerthan a pointy falcon wing. so they’re slower, but they have more lift. the owl doesn’t need to flap them as often.less flapping means… less noise. we often fear what’s fast. speed and dangerseem to go hand in hand. but owls have given up on racing through theday to become champions of sneaking through the night.
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