From North Island Wildlife Recovery Centre
This juvenile Northern Saw-whet Owl arrived this past week after being found stunned and unable to fly.
Luckily there were no fractures found on x-rays but it is recovering from some swelling along its spine.
We are hopeful that with time, good nutrition, and supportive care, that this little one will make a full recovery and be returned back to the wild!
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Saw Whet in the in-between stage of life before. I kept looking at the photo and thinking it looked odd, and then I noticed it has an adult face on a mostly juvi body! I like the specks on the body plumage where it’s starting to turn.
Here’s the juvi and adult so you can see how they’re mixed with this little one.
That actually makes me wonder: can owls change their facial expressions? Or is this one doomed to have perpetually stunned look?
I think owls have a tremendous amount of expression!
They have some limitations that we don’t have: they can move their eyes and they have a beak instead of lips, so they can’t roll their eyes at you or smile, so that would at first seem to reduce their ability to emote.
But they also have a lot of wonderful anatomy and abilities that we don’t have. They have 3 eyelids they can voluntarily move independently, as well as control over their pupil dilation, even able to make one more or less dilated than the other. The ones with plumicorns (the “horns”) they can also position however they please.
The one real biggie is that feather follicles have multiple muscle fibers connected to them, and this is huuuuuuge! This allows them to angle nearly any feather on their body, letting them change their entire shape! This is largely used to thermoregulate or to hide themselves or look more imposing, but they can do it for whatever reason they feel like.
Let’s look at some classic gifs of one of the internet’s favorite owls for this very reason. This is the White Faced Owl, often called the “transformer owl” for reasons you shall see.
This is the default look of the WFO. Very owly and adorable, with a pretty typical owl expression.
Here it is when it wants to look intimidating.
Here it is when it is a bit nervous and wants to hold its ground.
And when it gets really nervous, it tries to go as skinny, invisible, and as unapproachable as possible!
So those are many of the extremes they can go to. All owls can do more or less all these same things, and they can go as far or subtle into these looks as they want to. They have what to me feels like an extraordinary amount of control over so many parts of their bodies. One has to just account for the fact they don’t have mammalian bodies, so they aren’t going to be expressive in the same ways that we will.
Oh wow. Their angry look is so similar to a human one with furrowed brows and such. Also insane how slim birbs are under all their feathers. Bro basicly turned into a branch
It’s got to be helpful to all species that some emotions like anger are fairly universal.
Branch mode is pretty nifty. They’re usually nice and camo in the leaves or by the trunk, but when they’re caught out on a bare branch or just in the open, they just try their best to vanish into thin air.
they just try their best to vanish into thin air
And they’re getting ridiculously close xD
I’m feeling pretty stunned about … Everything
Can I come sit in the rescue center awhile?
That’s certainly a big part of the reason I go there! 😆
I usually find it very therapeutic.
