The owl is known to have good night vision. But how well she hears and how her hearing helps her navigate, not everyone knows. It turns out that keen hearing for an owl is no less important ability than good eyesight!
Owl: features of hunting
Owls and eagle owls are not the only birds foraging at night. Ducks, nightjars, some waders hunt at night, and each of these birds has a mechanism that allows you to find prey in the dark, relying not only on sight, is debugged in its own way. Ducks, for example, are helped by their sense of smell, and an owl is helped by keen hearing. In fact, if this bird relied mostly on sight for hunting, then it would often remain hungry - for example, on moonless or cloudy nights. Indeed, in absolute darkness no one can see, not even an owl.
It has been experimentally proven that an owl will not be able to catch a prey moving in the dark if it does not hear its characteristic sound. A mouse running in a dark room on a surface that drowns out footsteps will remain invisible to the bird. But to look for food, guided exclusively by sound, an owl just can, which is proved by cases of survival in nature of absolutely blind owls. Also, thanks to the sharpest hearing, the owl is able to accurately track the movement of mice under the snow and easily catch them.
Why, then, does the owl not hunt during the day, using its hearing? In fact, this bird, contrary to popular belief, sees quite well during the day. It's just that at night it gains some advantage over its prey, which is not so good at navigating in the dark. Therefore, during the day, the owl prefers to sleep off after the "night shift" in some secluded corner where it will not be disturbed.
Differences in the auditory organ of an owl
The owl's organ of hearing is unique. No other bird has a similar device. With the help of skin folds around the auditory opening of an owl, a semblance of an auricle is formed, and feathers growing in a special way create something like a horn. Moreover, bunches of feathers resembling ears, for which one of the varieties of owls was nicknamed "eared". it just has nothing to do with it. Hearing is amplified by the feathers that surround the owl's “face disc”. Due to the peculiarities of the location of these feathers, the owl hears better the sounds that are heard behind it. But this does not pose any inconvenience to her, since the owl is able to turn its head almost 180 degrees.
Another feature of the "ears" of an owl is their asymmetry. The axes of the auditory openings can be located at different angles and diverge in different directions, which allows owls to more accurately capture the location of the sound source. It is for this that owls so amusingly tilt their head to one side, turning it at different angles.
In addition, an enlarged eardrum, an area of approximately 50 square millimeters, provides an owl with keen hearing. For a chicken, for example, it is half as much. The eardrum of an owl also has a tent-shaped bulge, which further enhances its sensitivity. But the external structure of the hearing organs is not all that makes the owl an ideal night hunter, because even its auditory nerves are much more complex and better developed than those of other birds.
So the well-known metaphor "deaf as Tererev" can be opposed to the phrase "hears like an owl." But you should not envy owls in this regard: such an acute hearing could cause inconvenience to a person. For a successful and fulfilling life, people do not need to hear how mice run in the snow!