For owls that are superb.
US Wild Animal Rescue Database: Animal Help Now
International Wildlife Rescues: RescueShelter.com
Australia Rescue Help: WIRES
Germany-Austria-Switzerland-Italy Wild Bird Rescue: wildvogelhilfe.org
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.
For more detailed help, see the OwlPages Rescue page.
I've never looked at this guy after learning all my owl facts.
While he has the right number of toes, only one of the rear toes can swing forward, so there should only be 2 or 3 per side facing forward when he's perched.
I don't follow football, but I'm from the Philadelphia area, so go birds!
also it seems to be cross-eyed
Very true!
I also recently got frustrated looking at the Temple University mascot.
Owls attack with the talons in a 2x2 arrangement to maximize grabbing area, so the mascot's toe positioning is sub-optimal. I expected better from a university.
yeah, it'd be way better if they did the feet right. actually, almost all drawings/depictions of owls have 3 toes on the front and 1 in the back, and because of that i didn't know until i got really into owls that one of the toes can go to the back, making an X pattern
oh and since learning that, i've always wondered, are all owls' feet like that or are there species that have feet more like an eagle's (always 3 toes forward 1 backward)?
I think it's actually the other way around. Owls are classified as zygodactyl, which is the 2x2 layout, but unlike other zygodactyl birds like woodpeckers and parrots, only the owls can swing the outer toes forward.
I'm pretty sure they're all that way. I just checked the Ketupa genus owls, as they seem to have some less common traits, and I didn't see anything saying they had different feet. Ask the pics I could find we're all 2x2.
interesting. i did not know owls were that closely related to parrots and woodpeckers (or even the same about those two), and i didn't know woodpeckers were 2x2 (i thought parrots and owls just got some convergent evolution)
but that makes a lot of sense. it'd be pretty hard for a bird to reevolve 3x1 feet. i previously thought the owls evolved 2x2 feet by themselves, so i also thought there could've been a group of owls that was outside the 2x2 group
i guess i just shouldve checked owl taxonomy and closely related groups lol
There are a number of toe arrangements, and they seem to develop from the niche the birds occupy. Like the woodpecker has the same 2x2 setup as the owl, but the woodpecker isn't grabbing prey, but it's hanging on vertical surfaces, and having that second toe going backwards, it gets a better grip on the tree. It sounds more like convergent evolution, since I don't think owls seem very close to parrots, woodpeckers, cuckoos, or any of the other 2x2 birds.
Nightjars are thought to be owls' closest relatives, and they have anisodactyl feet with the 3x1 configuration.
There's a ton of reading just in bird feet that 8 never expected, but that's probably my mistake, since bird feet have some of the jobs of our hands in addition to being specialized feet, so it's no wonder there's such an assortment of special adaptations.
oh my bad i thought zygodactyl was a taxonomic group lol
also according to wikipedia the closest relatives to owls are new world vultures, hawks, ospreys, and secretary birds:
falcons are pretty close relatives to parrots, so i think i misremembered and that's one of the reasons i thought parrots and owls were closely related
nightjars are more closely related to potoos and frogmouths, and those 3 seem to just be species that convergently evolved to be like owls (or at least look like them)
My brain cries when I try to stare at all that Latin, but everything I search for about owls closest relatives has always returned the nightjars. I saw a few things saying the hawk/falcon relation was outdated, but genetics are revealing a bunch of surprises and causing lots of recasting of who's related to who.
I like them all no matter who they're related to! 😄
ok since this does not fit in very well to the sub I feel ok indulging myself. So apologies. - LICK MY POP BEEEOOOOCH!!!