
The silence of the owls - knowablemag
https://www.knowablemagazine.org/article/technology/2020/how-owls-fly-without-making-a-sound
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KineticLensman
IANAO but I do voluntary work at a Raptor conservancy.

Owl silent-hunter stealth mode has one significant penalty not mentioned in
the article: in some species (e.g. Barn Owls) the feathers are not waterproof
because they lack preen oil [0]. Consequently Barn Owl mortality increases in
extended periods of wet weather (they get wet and then cold), forcing them to
hunt in the day in some cases.

Edit: IANAO = ... Ornithologist, not ...Owl, in case anyone was wondering.

[0] [https://ww2.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/bird-and-
wildlife...](https://ww2.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/bird-and-wildlife-
guides/ask-an-expert/previous/barnowlfeathers.aspx)

~~~
SAI_Peregrinus
YOLO (You Obviously Love Owls).

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bcbrown
Here's one of my favorite passages from a field guide:

Silent flight enables owls in flight to hear the movements of small rodents,
while in turn it keeps the sharp-eared prey in the dark over someone coming
for dinner. This tempts one to fancy that mice live in utter ignorance of owls
except as invisible agents of disappearances from the family.

~~~
freepor
This is my least favorite thing about Wikipedia -- it's taken all of the
whimsy out of general knowledge resources.

~~~
BiteCode_dev
Yeah but then, do you want "whimsy" in sensible articles like
political/religious/ethical related ones? Then would one expect wikipedia
editors to enforce this policy on top of the work they already do? And using
what criteria?

~~~
freepor
No, Wikipedia is not set up for whimsy. This kind of thing has to come from a
single author with a point of view, not from a crowdsourced article with
conflicting points of view.

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Zealotux
A great quick video from the BBC on the subject:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d_FEaFgJyfA](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d_FEaFgJyfA)

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grawprog
Standing in a barn full of barn owls gives me kind of an eerie feeling. All
you hear is little clicks above you, then you feel a whoosh of air above your
head as they fly over and another soft click as they land. It's really cool
though.

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Yizahi
Short version - very big wings to body ratio, less flap rate, less noise.

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tyingq
This diagram made it easier for me to see what they meant by "comb
structure"...

[https://cdn.hswstatic.com/gif/owls-silent-
flight.jpg](https://cdn.hswstatic.com/gif/owls-silent-flight.jpg)

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moneytide1
"The quieter you are the more you're able to hear."

~~~
akavel
Ahahah, this reminds me: after I learnt unicycling and started practising it
on longer paths, I started hearing a weird regular "tick" sound from somewhere
in the uni(cycle). I was wondering if something's broken, but it was hard to
"debug":

\- the sound obviously stopped when I stopped riding,

\- just turning the uni's wheel on the ground didn't seem reproduce the noise,

\- you can imagine it's kinda not very easy to look down and esp. reach for
various parts of the uni when you're riding.

At some point I finally managed to look down for long enough to discover, that
it was the sound of my shoelace flailing around and hitting the shoe with
every turn of the wheel... I realized that this sound must be there even on a
"normal" bike, but uni is apparently so much quieter...

~~~
elijahparker
Yes, I learned to use a bell well in advance of approaching people on a
unicycle after I had a few people scream in response to a gentle “on your
left” as they had no idea of my presence.

