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If you find an injured owl:

Note your exact location so the owl can be released back where it came from. Contact a licensed wildlife rehabilitation specialist to get correct advice and immediate assistance.

Minimize stress for the owl. If you can catch it, toss a towel or sweater over it and get it in a cardboard box or pet carrier. It should have room to be comfortable but not so much it can panic and injure itself. If you can’t catch it, keep people and animals away until help can come.

Do not give food or water! If you feed them the wrong thing or give them water improperly, you can accidentally kill them. It can also cause problems if they require anesthesia once help arrives, complicating procedures and costing valuable time.

If it is a baby owl, and it looks safe and uninjured, leave it be. Time on the ground is part of their growing up. They can fly to some extent and climb trees. If animals or people are nearby, put it up on a branch so it’s safe. If it’s injured, follow the above advice.

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Fluorescent pigment concentration correlated with age, sex, and size in Long-eared Owl (Asio otus) plumage (www.tandfonline.com)

submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Part of the abstract:

Recent findings on the abilities of birds to see in the ultraviolet (UV) spectrum have expanded questions about plumage coloration to include the luminescent characteristics of bird plumage, including fluorescence. Yet little is understood about the function of fluorescent pigments, and very few studies have attempted to describe their distribution throughout a population. In this study, we used a fluorometer to measure variation in the amount of fluorescent pigments (e.g. porphyrins) extracted from the secondary coverts of Long-eared Owls (Asio otus) migrating through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the spring of 2020 (n = 99). We found that age and sex were the strongest predictors of fluorescent pigment concentration, wherein older and female birds had the highest fluorescent pigment concentrations.

I understand this is not your regular Superb Owl post, but I found it mighty interesting!

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago

I liked the hypothesis at the end that the pigments may okay a role in reflecting heat to help maintain proper temperature on eggs while nesting. I'll have to find time to give this a better read today.

Thank you for sharing!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Wow, cool article!