There are certain animals that for some reason entrance me and I have an obsession with getting to photograph them.  Ideally I want my pictures to take place in the wild, but with this particular bird I have had limited success.  Luckily I was able to feed my obsession with the help of The Museum of Natural History.  Let me share my success stories outside and inside.

The title’s quote is from J.K. Rowling, the author of the immensely popular Harry Potter fantasy series. The hero  Harry Potter had an owl as a pet – a snowy owl named Hedwig, and he and other owls in the stories delivered mail and parcels in the wizarding world – often without the benefit of having an address.

Taking a little literary license I am claiming this  quote refers to my plight, for I have had limited  luck in photographing owls.  The majority of these fascinating birds are nocturnal so I suppose I have a bit of an excuse, but it has been a singular challenge for me since I began bird photography a number of years a ago.

At one point I became so frustrated that I staged a photo of a “snowy owl”  in Alaska:

I did manage to catch a photo of a snowy owl while in Alaska but it was in an aviary:

 

I had better success in New Zealand where I got to watch the tiny owl that you see at the top of this post.  It is a  Morepork, or Ruru in Maori.  Here are a few additional picks of this tiny cutie:

I must have finally accumulated enough points with Horus (Egyptian god with an owl head) for to my delight the New York City American Museum of Natural History  had a members- only live presentation of owls from all over the world.  Before I share photos of these gorgeous birds, here are some general owl facts:

• There are around 200 different owl species.
• Owls are nocturnal – most active at night
• A group of owls is called a parliament.
• Owls hunt insects, fish, small mammals and other birds,
• Owls can turn their heads as much as 270 degrees.  Their necks have 14 bones as opposed to humans’ 7
• Owls are farsighted.  Their eyes are not oval but cone shaped and cannot move within the eye socket – that is what give them their wide eyed stare
• Owl flight is silent due to specialized feathers that reduce noise turbulence.

The owls presented at the museum were from all over the world and their individual appearance was in size order – so I will do the same here.

ELF –  Also called a dwarf owl, the elf is the smallest (5-6”) lightest (mass 1.4 oz) and most nocturnal. They live in the Sonoran Desert and travel South to Mexico for the winter. The elf owl plays dead when threatened . Just adorable

 

BARN – The heart shape  face is its most familiar feature.  The barn owl uses a combination of sight and hearing to find its  prey and it has  one of the sharpest hearing abilities  of any animal. Its  ear openings are asymmetrical (not evenly placed) ear openings, the left one being higher than the right one so its ears are more sensitive to sounds from both above and below.

BARRED – Also known as the HOOT owl.  It is a very vocal owl and when a male is trying to attract a lady, he starts with a specialized hoot followed by some fancy dancing and wiggling of wings.

 

HORNED -The “horns” refer to the tufts of feathers on the top of the owl’s head but they are neither horns nor ears. Their neck is very long, even though it appears that the neck is short. The horned owl we met had a way of weaving its body back and forth like a snake, making photos difficult to take – but it was a fascinating bird!

 

SPECTACLED – I had never seen this owl before in pictures or documentaries. It is a large tropical owl with a habitat ranging from southern Mexico and Trinidad south to southern Brazil, Paraguay and northwestern Argentina. It preys on large mammals  such as the three-toed sloth as well as large insects and birds, including smaller owls.

 

EAGLE – This is the largest and heaviest  of the owl species and it’s talons rival those of the bald eagle. It is found in North Africa, Europe, Asia and the Middle East in varying habitats.  It is not a nocturnal owl, preferring to hunt during dusk and dawn.  Their diet includes. voles, rats, beetles, deer fawns, rabbits, birds, mice, smaller owls, snakes and fish.

Have to say, meeting all these owls was quite a hoot.

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