Owls, the silent hunters

The mysterious and majestic figure of an owl is a rare sight to see in most places. They glide silently on their wings to capture their prey, or call out into the night with an eerie sound. There are many different types of owl, all beautiful and many peoples' favourite type of bird. The Barn owl is of a medium size with a light grey upper body with white and mainly reddish-brown feathers. This owl can be easily recognised due to the shape of its face which is heart-shaped. To make this stand out even more, it is outlined with a reddish-brown colour with an off-white beak.

Being nocturnal it hunts at night, searching for small mammals like shrews, voles, mice, rats, gophers, frogs, bats and insects. Their hearing is extremely good and they use both this and their sight to find prey as they move unnoticed through the air. If you are sitting at home one night, playing Partypoker or listening to music, you will probably not notice the swift shape glide past the dark window. This owl can be very subtle and is a good hunter.

A larger owl is the Snowy owl. This is the heaviest owl in the whole of North America with the second largest wing span of the owls throughout this area. This type of owl lives mainly in the Arctic Tundra on mountain slopes, low-valley floors and rises. They have been found in North America, Canada and Siberia in the winter. These owls like to feed on snowshoe hares, voles, lemmings and fish. They will also eat smaller mammals and even enter traps that have been set for other animals to eat them.

Some species of owl are dying out, however, and much needs to be done to stop this. These beautiful birds of mystery that seem to live in the night still make their presence known with their loud calls and it would be a shame if this was no more.

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