Superbowl

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/57510192

From Matt Sorum

Northern Saw Whet Owl today in Fargo, ND.

Taken on the way home, at the end of the day, after having a fantastic meal at my daughter's house.

From Akbar Bhai Nalsarovar

Eurasian scops owl

GRK || Gujarat || Nov 2025 with Great man of GRK Bharat Kapdi brother

GRK = Great Rann of Kutch = one of the largest salt marshes in the world at 7500 km², just under 3000 miles², or 1.8 million acres. For US people, that is 1.5 x the size of Delaware.

Gujarat = state in India

Bharat Kapdi = bird photographer/guide

From Blackland Prairie Raptor Center

Here is one of our recent patients, a Barn Owl! After a full examination, we determined it was ready to return to the wild. It has now been successfully released! Ever notice that a Barn Owl's face is shaped like an apple when you look at it straight on? Profile photo gives a whole different view.

Inspired by the owly calendar post, I got a cool book about the Boreal Owl in Finland as a Christmas gift! The book is heavily focused on nesting and what affects it (basically fluctuations in vole population), but there were some other interesting facts too! Did you know that fieldfares sometimes poop-attack boreal owls, smudging their feathers and making them unable to fly?

The book is written by Erkki Korpimäki, an ecologist, an owl specialist and a researcher. Having studied the Boreal owl for more than 50 years, he was awarded the Champion of Owls Award in 2018 by the International Festival of Owls!

I read the book through in one sitting and on the side finally decided to learn the names of our owls in English.

From Ho Wah Lee

Snow splashing in the evening golden sun

Hulunbuir @ 24 Nov 2025

My calendar had this owl today, so I thought I would share it. Merry Christmas, everyone!

@samanthaneville

From Baytree Owl and Raptor Centre

These little guys are Woodfords Owls and we've not had this species here (certainly since I've been here anyway). There are actually 4 of them that all live together and have just had a quick beak trim and check over before they head in to the quarantine aviaries for a few weeks.

They are cute little species that always look permanently surprised with their massive eyes.

AKA: African wood owl (Strix woodfordii)

We haven't talked about these guys here much before, so these will be new to many of you.

From Luz Hernandez Kroll

Who dares to disturb my daytime slumber? Those little Northern Pygmy Owls are known for their perpetually grumpy expressions! Their facial markings and big, round eyes make them look like they are scowling, but they are actually super cute!

From International Owl Center

How is this for cool?!? Long-time International Festival of Owls volunteer Jody Hauser needed to get a prosthetic leg and was allowed to design the graphics for it. If you're going to have a prosthetic leg, it may as well look awesome!

Bonus points if it's got talons at the bottom! 😁

Two Posts from Badger Run Wildlife Rehab

Ever wonder why birds can land on freezing metal in winter and their feet don't get stuck to it?

Our fingers will get stuck on cold metal ice cube trays when pulling them out of the freezer. Our tongues freeze to cold metal ala A Christmas Story. That's because the moisture on our skin freezes in contact with the icy metal.

Birds' feet are covered with dry scales so there is no moisture to freeze to frigid metal. Birds have no sweat glands and essentially no secretory glands (not zero) so the skin does not secrete moisture through the skin on their feet.

The photo ~~below~~ of an Osprey's foot shows these scales in the extreme.

Frigid temps can be hard on wildlife. How do they keep those bare feet from freezing? Countercurrent heat exchange.

Basically, the arteries carrying warm blood down to the feet are very close to, if not intertwined with, the veins carrying cooled blood back up to the body and the heart. So, the warm blood in the artery essentially rewarms the blood coming back up the leg's vein so it does not cool the body's core temperature.

And birds aren't the only ones that use countercurrent heat exchange in their extremities to conserve body temperature. Other animals like arctic foxes and wolves use it, too. Deer species, as well. Also, beaver, muskrat, otters, and sea mammals.

From Matt Parish

Found this little owl after a successful night of hunting. It was sitting on a Deer Mouse in the early morning in a freshly snow covered conifer.

Northern Saw-whet Owl

Kawartha Lakes

From Igor Marach

Funniest short-eared owl ever WA, USA

Taken with OM System - at PNW

What great faces! Shorties are amazing!

From Deepak Chaddha

I've been observing this Indian Eagle Owl couple for about three years now, always maintaining a respectful distance to avoid disturbing them. Over time, I've noticed how remarkably expressive they are - recently, I discovered they use distinct calls to signal different kinds of alerts. It's fascinating to witness such communication in the wild.

Until now, I had never seen them perch together. They usually appear at the same spot but keep some distance between them. This time, however, I was lucky to spot both facing each other from opposite directions, creating a stunning moment of quiet connection. One of them was making a curious, unfamiliar call - something I'll share in the next video.

The pair resides on the fringes of the Koka Wildlife Sanctuary, though I prefer not to reveal the exact location for their safety.

From Bryce Gaudian

Long-eared Owl. I find them to be astronomically enchanting. They have majestic grandeur. Typically in habitat that camouflages them to the hilt. Crossing paths with a Long-eared Owl is truly a Gift. This was two days ago - Sunday morning about a half hour after sunrise in a very deep woods here in America's Heartland - the Midwest. November 23, 2025

From Nicole Seward

This is a series I've never shared before - and it took me all evening to put together. I had the incredible opportunity to visit a Great Horned Owl nest that was in a nest box, my first time ever photographing one. A couple of years earlier, this same pair had nested in a Red-tailed Hawk nest that had fallen. When that happened, a concerned bystander, Carolyn Nessmann came up with a plan, and a special woman graciously allowed a nest box to be placed in her yard for the owlets. Since then, this pair has continued to use the box year after year.

On this particular night, not much seemed to be happening at first, and I honestly thought I wasn't going to see much action - but I was very wrong. After mama owl fed the babies, she refused to feed the larger owlet, clearly encouraging it to leave the nest. When mom took off, the owlet did just that, branching out and leaving the nest for good.

It was one of the most epic wildlife experiences I've ever witnessed. For a full two minutes, we watched as the owlet worked its way down a long branch, stomping, leaping, and making progress toward higher branches, where mom would reward him with food for leaving the nest. Watching it all unfold was unforgettable. I hope you enjoy this series as much as I enjoyed witnessing it.

The Snowy Owl has been declared Regionally Extinct in Sweden. For the first time in 20 years, the country has officially lost a bird species.

From Birdlife.org

It’s hard to mistake a Snowy Owl for another bird. Big, bright white, and incredibly graceful, it’s one of the largest owls in the world. It normally nests far up in the Arctic, following the rise and fall of lemming populations. In good years, when food is plentiful, some migrate south and settle in the Swedish mountains.

But life has never been easy for this species. In the 1800s, in some parts of the world, it was among the most persecuted owls. Thousands were shot for taxidermy, and adults and eggs were hunted for food. Today, only an estimated 14,000–28,000 remain worldwide. The species is now listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List and its numbers continue to decline.

Despite these challenges, Snowy Owls are extraordinary birds. They can hear prey hidden beneath deep snow and dive straight through it to catch it. Perfectly camouflaged in the Arctic landscape, they can live for decades in some of the harshest conditions on Earth. And for a long time, Sweden offered exactly what they needed: cold weather, open landscapes, wetlands, and plenty of rodents.

The Snowy Owl in Sweden

Snowy Owls have been breeding irregularly in Sweden for centuries. Over the 1970s, several hundred pairs raised their young in the mountains. Their presence became a powerful symbol of Sweden’s northern wilderness.

But after 2015, they went silent. No nests. No chicks. No signs of breeding at all. The Snowy Owl has been declared Regionally Extinct in Sweden in Autumn 2025. This heartbreaking news doesn’t come out of the blue.

“We are extremely concerned about the development. The majority of owl species in Sweden are declining. One reason is climate change, which means that rodent years are becoming increasingly rare.”, says Niklas Aronsson, editor-in-chief of Vår Fågelvärld, BirdLife Sweden’s member magazine.

How did this happen?

Owls usually choose remote, untouched places to raise their young. But as housing, roads, deforestation and other human activities have expanded, most of the species that once bred in Sweden, are losing their habitat.

The Snowy Owls’ biggest threat, though, is climate change. Warmer winters bring more rain and less snow, destroying the snow tunnels that lemmings, their primary food source, rely on to survive. Without these small rodents, the owls cannot survive. And as the Arctic warms, the landscapes Snowy Owls depend on are disappearing too.

Their disappearance from Sweden is more than a loss of a species. It’s a warning about how quickly Arctic ecosystems are changing. Losing them is a painful reminder of what’s at stake for biodiversity, for nature, and for conservation work in general.

But not everything is lost. As long as the Snowy Owl is not globally extinct, there is still hope that it may return to Sweden one day. It’s future, however, depends on the choices we make and our willingness to protect nature and its inhabitants. The moment is now, nature can’t wait.

Original Story

Before:

From Salthaven Wildlife Center

From injury to freedom.

This Barred Owl arrived in our care with severe torticollis, likely caused by a vehicle strike. Thanks to round the clock care, red light laser therapy, physiotherapy, and a whole lot of patience, this owl regained strength, balance, and mobility.

A huge thank you to the incredible team at Staples Animal Hospital for their expertise and support throughout this rehabilitation journey.

And to our community, your continued support makes stories like this possible. Today, this owl is back where it belongs, soaring free in the wild!

From Kevin Lohman

Can you find the burrowing owl in this photo? It blends in quite well.

Northern California 2025 December

We don't usually think of these guys as being stealthy, so this was a fun photo to find!

Was it hard to spot? Would you have walked right past it?

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/52034898

From Mark Workman

heat lamp on a cold day

From Jane Jones-Ramelli

A little Saw-whet owl being harassed by a Broad-billed hummingbird!!!!

A part of a fossilized mammal skull, with sediment in a tooth socket that turned out to be a nest built by a prehistoric bee.

From Phys.org

About 20,000 years ago, a family of owls lived in a cave. Sometimes, they would cough up owl pellets containing the bones of their prey, which landed on the cave floor. And, researchers have just discovered, ancient bees would use the bones' empty tooth sockets as nests.

A study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science documents this discovery, which represents the first time bees have ever been known to use bones as places to lay their eggs.

The Caribbean island of Hispaniola, which includes Haiti and the Dominican Republic, is full of limestone caves. "In some areas, you'll find a different sinkhole every 100 meters," says Lazaro Viñola López, a postdoctoral researcher at the Field Museum in Chicago and the paper's lead author.

Juan Almonte Milan, the curator of paleobiology at the Dominican Republic's Museo Nacional de Historia Natural, had identified a cave in the southern Dominican Republic as a deposit of lots of fossils, so Viñola López and several of his colleagues explored the cave looking for specimens to study as part of his Ph.D. program at the University of Florida and the Florida Museum of Natural History.

"The initial descent into the cave isn't too deep— we would tie a rope to the side and then rappel down," says Viñola López. "If you go in at night, you see the eyes of the tarantulas that live inside. But once you walk down a ten-meter-long tunnel underground, you start finding the fossils."

Juan Almonte Milan, the scientist who first discovered the cave and for whom the preserved bees' nests are named.

There were layers and layers of fossils, separated by carbonate layers resulting from rainy periods in the distant past. Many of the fossils belonged to rodents, but there were also bones from sloths, birds, and reptiles, amounting to more than 50 different species. Taken together, these fossils told a story.

"We think that this was a cave where owls lived for many generations, maybe for hundreds or thousands of years," says Viñola López. "The owls would go out and hunt, and then come back to the cave and throw up pellets. We find fossils of the animals that they ate, fossils from the owls themselves, and even some turtles and crocodiles who might have fallen into the cave."

Viñola López, a paleontologist, was primarily interested in the bones from the mammals that the owls ate. He was going through the bags and bags of fossil bones that his team retrieved from the cave and cleaning out the dirt and debris when he noticed something odd.

An illustration showing the bones and bee nests in the cave.

In the empty tooth sockets of the mammal's jaws, Viñola López noticed that the sediment in these cavities didn't look like it had just randomly accrued.

"It was a smooth surface, and almost concave. That's not how sediment normally fills in, and I kept seeing it in multiple specimens. I was like, 'Okay, there's something weird here,'" he says. "It reminded me of the wasp nest."

Several years earlier, when Viñola López was an undergraduate student, he went on a fossil dig in Montana. A paleontologist there showed him the ancient remains of wasp cocoons: small, thin chambers of dried mud where wasp larvae would metamorphose into adults.

These wasp cocoons looked a lot like smooth dirt lining the tooth sockets from the cave fossils Viñola López had found in the Dominican Republic.

Some of the more well-known nests built by bees and wasps belong to social species that live together and raise their young en masse in large colonies— think of paper wasp nests and the wax honeycombs in a honey bee nest.

"But actually, most bees are solitary. They lay their eggs in small cavities, and they leave pollen for the larvae to eat," says Viñola López. "Some bee species burrow holes in wood or in the ground, or use empty structures for nests. Some species in Europe and Africa even build their nests in empty snail shells,"

To better examine the potential insect nests present in the cave fossils, Viñola López and his colleagues CT scanned the bones, essentially X-raying the specimens from enough angles that they could produce 3D pictures of the compacted dirt inside the tooth sockets without destroying the fossils or disturbing the sediment.

The shapes and structures of the sediment looked just like the mud nests created by some bee species today; some of these nests even contained grains of ancient pollen that the bee mothers had sealed in the nests for their babies to eat.

The researchers hypothesize that the bees mixed their saliva with dirt to make these little individual nests for their eggs; each nest was smaller than the eraser at the tip of a pencil. Building their nests inside the bones of larger animals may have protected the bees' eggs from hungry predators like wasps.

The nests that the scientists found didn't contain any actual fossilized bees; that doesn't surprise Viñola López, as the hot, muggy conditions in this cave would not have been conducive to preserving small, delicate insect bodies.

Since no bees were preserved, Viñola López and his colleagues were not able to assign a species to the bees that made them. However, the nests themselves were different enough from known bees' nests that the researchers were able to give a taxonomic classification to the fossil nests.

They classified the nests as Osnidum almontei after Juan Almonte Milan, the scientist who first discovered the cave. Almonte Milan has worked in the area for decades and is the leading paleontologist on the island.

"Since we didn't find any of the bees' bodies, it's possible that they belonged to a species that's still alive today— there's very little known about the ecology of many of the bees on these islands," says Viñola López. "But we know that a lot of the animals whose bones are preserved in the cave are now extinct, so the bees that created these nests might be from a species that has died out."

This study represents the first known case of bees using the hollows in animal bones to build their nests in.

Viñola López suspects that this behavior was the result of several combined circumstances: there isn't much soil covering the limestone ground in this region, so the bees may have turned to caves as a place to nest rather than simply burrowing in the ground like many other species. And since this cave happened to be a multi-generational home for owls who coughed up a lot of owl pellets over the years, the bees took advantage of the bones delivered by the owls.

"This discovery shows how weird bees can be— they can surprise you. But it also shows that when you're looking at fossils, you have to be very careful," says Viñola López. If he hadn't previously seen a fossil wasp nest, he might have just scrubbed away the sediment when he was cleaning the fossil bones for this project.

"Even if you're looking primarily for fossils of larger, vertebrate animals, you should keep an eye out for trace fossils that can tell you about invertebrates like insects. Knowing about insects can tell you a lot about a whole ecosystem, so you have to pay attention to that part of the story."

From Devin Pitts

I've walked past this particular tree probably hundreds of times while out birding and everytime I see it always think to myself "Man that would be a great spot for a screech owl", and while out this morning I finally caught one in it with its meal from last night. My first red morph!