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A narrative podcast from two bird lovers (and friends) exploring all things bird.
I'm Hannah, and I'm Cleo, and you're listening to Birds on Birds.
Welcome back to Birds on Birds and Ornithological Odyssey, where we take you on our journey when we're learning about birds.
Yeah, we do a bunch of research.
We stay up late.
We write a bunch of notes and we bring them to you.
And we get surprised about things that probably a lot of people already know, but we think are still really fun.
But I don't know.
Like sometimes when I tell people things, yeah, they think, whoa.
Although how many people in the bird community would feel that way. Don't know.
I wonder at what point we'll make it to bird people.
I think some bird people might listen to us already.
Shout out to you.
I hope you're there.
Tell your neighborhood crow.
I said, And that I want a gift.
Yeah, Hannah wants a gift.
I will bring them Cheerios.
And a Cheerio, mate.
That's what I'm bringing.
Today, we are doing what we talked about last week.. Follow up to the Guardians of Kahul, which if you didn't listen to, you should.
Yeah.
Or at least watch the movie.
Because I'm going to make some references.
And I mean, you don't have to watch the movie, but you should at least listen to our pod.
Yeah, and you should consider watching the movie.
Or at least watching a trailer, so you have an idea.
It's a really good movie.
It's really good.
I would say I'm so excited to hear about the barn owl.
And before we get started, I just want to mention I have like such a distinct memory.
I was telling Hannah about this of seeing a little barn owl inside of my shed growing up.
I lived on this like big property in Florida and we had a shed in the back corner that was like held a bunch of stuff as sheds do.
Why am I mansplating sheds?
But anyway, we had this shed and one day I remember my mom going out and then suddenly she was like, come quick, come quick, and like whispering and then she was like, shh, shh.
And we walked up and there was like a little barn owl just in the back corner of the shed and it was really a just like a really key memory for me.
So I'm really excited to talk about these birds today.
Yeah, we are talking about Tito. Which I will reference, but those are the pure ones from last episode.
Full name.
Specifically, I'm gonna be talking about the American barn owl, which is Taito Fricata, which does sound like bread.
It does.
It sounds like a focaccha.
Forcata is Latin for forked or bifurcated.
So it's referring to the shape of the tail for this specific species.
Cool.
But the nicknames.
Buggle up because we've got a lot of nicknames for this one.
We've been doing lots of nicknames.
Ghost owl.
Monkey faced owl.
Death owl, golden owl, church owl, steeple owl.
Church and steeple.
Right.
Like wedding owl.
Let's zoom in.
Not just.. Just a Steve Bull.
Yeah.
But also death.
Cave owl.
Silver owl, and night owl.
Because if there's any other type of owl.
All owls are nocturnal.
Spoiler.
Well, actually, are they?
As far as we know, be.
They all are.
This house is nocturnal.
Okay.
Spoiler.
That's so interesting.
And I do think owls, generally speaking, anciently symbolize. Are you going to say this later?
I don't know.
Like, there's their scene is like a bad omen in a lot of, like, I'm gonna talk about that.
Okay, I won't talk about that too much then.
But yeah, they are considered a bad omen in a lot of cultures, or at least were.
So as far as size, they are about 12.5 to 15.5 inches or 32 to 40 centimeters.
Yeah, tip to tip.
Smaller than you'd think.
Yeah.
Their weight is about 14 to 25 ounces, depending on how big they are.
So 400 to 700 grams or how many servings of cottage cheese?
400 grams?
4 to 700.
Oh, that's about 3.5 to five.
Five-ish servings?
Maybe six, 5.56 servings?
And if you saw Barnell, you'd be like, yeah, that's about 7 servings. Cottage cheese.
Five serving cottage cheese, buddy.
I think they're really like smaller than you'd think.
Like the in the pictures.
They look quite big, but when you see one in real life, because and I do remember the one I saw.
I was like, so much fiddler that I thought it would be.
They're not tiny by any stretch.
They're wingspan is very large.
They are about 40 to 50 inches.
So remember, their length, tip to tip, is only about 12.5 to 15.5 .
Jesus Christ.
So that's way bigger wings.
So, like, they're all wing, which, like, if you see them, you're obviously, you might see them flying, but if you see them, like, sitting, a lot of what you're seeing is their wings.
Yeah, like folded down.
That actually makes a lot of sense.
And if you do look up a video of them flying, their wings look...
You can see how big they are.
Yes, compared to their body.
Yeah.
So about 100 to 125 centimeters.
Jesus.
Merlin puts them roughly crow sized and I, like, was skeptical of this, but I think it makes sense.
Their body, if we're focused on the body, it is only about crow sized, they're bigger than a screech owl.
Shout out to...
Lies of gill, but smaller than a great horned owl.
So if you see a great horned owl, their body is like definitely bigger.
Their wingspan to body size is a little less of an extreme variation.
Yeah, that's crazy.
Their lifespan is kind of variable.
So the oldest known bar now that's been found on record, lived at least 15 years and 5 months.
It was found in Ohio.
Okay.
But wildlifespans are typically much shorter, especially because their 1st year has a really high mortality rate.
Um, which honestly kind of lines up with some of the stuff in the movie of like the worst place for an owl to be is on the ground.
Like, yes.
So I think some just like might not make it past their fledgling state.
Yeah.
As far as their plumage, they are gorgeous.
Oh, they are really so beautiful.
So both sexes, there's very minimal plumage difference.
Females tend to run a little larger, which we've actually seen with a lot of raptors.
Sometimes they're a little darker or more heavily spotted, but really there's a pretty minimal difference besides that.
So they are considered pale and ghostly overall, but especially their face.
Their face is extremely white, and it's like a very flat facial disk that is a lot of people call it heart shaped.
I would say like, don't think of like a heart where it's like a very dramatic tip.
And again, I'm not talking about like an actual human heart.
Not anatomical.
I'm talking...
I'm talking about a heart that you get some candy in for Valentine's Day.
It's like a heart at the top, and then it kind of swoops to like, instead of a circle.
It just goes down into a circle.
Yeah.
So like, yeah, it kind of looks like a heart.
And also from the side, you, the disc, it does kind of look like one side of a heart.
Definitely.
And some look more heart shaped than others, for sure.
Yeah, I think it kind of depends on.. It goes a little more into a point, but definitely from the side, if it's not head on at all, it looks very heart-shaped.
But it really is the most pure white part of their body is the facial disk.
And it really looks like a disk because of how flat it is.
Then they have an very orange edging on the facial disk.
They have some very, very dark almond shaped eyes, whereas some owls have very, very round eyes.
And some owls, a lot of owls that people might picture are like yellow eyes with big pupils.
These are just like dark black eyes and almond shaped.
So not quite the typical eye that you might think of when you think of an owl.
Yeah, they kind of tip upward to like the points of the almonds.
It kind of goes down and then towards the outside, like kind of tip up as well, which gives them a really distinct.
You'd know when you see a barn owl.
It's pretty obvious.
Yes.
They have a cream colored, hooked bill that really kind of blends into their facial disc.
They have long feathered legs, which almost all owls have like very similar to like an eagle and stuff where the feathers actually go all the way down to their toes.
Some like snowy owls.
They even have feathers on their actual toes and talons.
I think finding out that owls had super long legs was like a thing that was going around on the internet a while ago.
Because when you lift them up, they have much longer legs than they realize, but they kind of sit into them when they're on branches.
And so you can't really tell them. Kind of like squatting a lot.
Yeah, yeah.
It's very silly.
So their legs are much longer than you'd expect.
Yes.
A lot of owls have like these little ear tufts that aren't actually their ears, but they look like what you would expect of an ear for like a fox or something.
So this owl does not have any ear tufts.
No ear toughs at all.
The upper parts of their body are like a buffy golden color with this fine dark speckling that also has these little like white speckles that causes this like contrast where it looks very like salt and pepper dusted on this like beautiful golden brown color.
They almost look like they're copper that's oxidizing.
Like, it's like this very...
Yes.
Because it's like a very light gray with these little tiny black and white...
And like rusty spots.
It's very, very unique.
It doesn't look how like a lot of feathers, a feather would come off and they're all kind of like similar where there's like the tip is this color and this is this color.
It looks like the whole body was kind of like splatter painted. Not splatter painted, but like sponge painted, I guess.
It's really cool.
It's kind of like my dog, her hair, it's called Brindold. Where it's like if you take one single hair that falls off of her, like, you can see like 5 different colors just on that single strand.
No, exactly.
Exactly.
It's like that.
So, the underparts.
So like their belly, like after they're like, I guess, I don't know, neck and chest, that's typically a little darker, more of that, dappling with the golden brown undertone.
And then it kind of fades to like more and more white as it heads towards their legs.
Okay.
With still like a little bit of dappling of the like white and black accents.
They have long, as we mentioned, wings, and they are kind of rounded.
They have kind of like a, there's, it's not a harsh angle at the tips of the wings.
They're kind of rounded at the edges.
And then, so then even when they're like tucked back, it gives them a very round shape.
They're like little torpedo, very owl shape. Tucked in owl shape.
Yeah.
They have a short, squared tail to give the distinctive flight that they have and then like the bifurcated or forked situation.
Instead of like what you would picture with forked, like a snake tongue where it's like split down the middle.
It's more so like split bottom to top.
So like, what?
Oh, yeah.
So, like, the bottom is like has a slight angle up.
No, no, no, no.
The top has a slight angle up and then the bottom underneath that has a slight angle down.
So that's where the forking happens.
That's fascinating And I guess that like...
Yeah, situation.
It's interesting.
Huh.
Okay.
Yeah.
So, um, juveniles are, as Cleo mentioned, adorable.
Did I say that?
Oh, from Aglanton.
Well, and you saw Oh, I saw like an owlet.
Yeah, when I was young.
It was definitely like it had its full plumage.
Okay.
But it was small.
I remember it being really small.
Smaller than I would expected.
Right.
Because I feel like when you see pictures of barn owls, they just look really grand.
Yes.
And so when you see one in real life, my anticipation was just that it would be much bigger.
Yeah.
But it had its full plumage, but Eglinton is also a baby owl.
She is.
And a Thai toe. And a Thai toe, exactly.
So they, um, are covered in white down.
They're definitely ugly cute.
They are.
They kind of have little uncanny valley.
They have like the facial disk, but it doesn't look right, and then the rest of them is like fuzzy. And white down.
They look like specters that you would find in your home that are like, you will bring me something now.
You would bring this to me.
Well, and they are helpless when they're born.
They are blind and precocial.
They're blind.
They need food brought to them.
Oh, fuck.
I didn't real they were blind.
All barn owls are born completely blind as part of their natural development, but they open their eyes and gain sight within 10 to 14 days.
What the fuck?
Yep.
Their eyes stay tightly sealed for the 1st week, at least.
Damn, so literally like puppies.
Yeah.
Okay.
And then I think even once they 1st open, it's like still that partial blindness situation.
That's crazy.
Yeah. Especially because owls are known for like being able to see so well.
Right.
To be born blind and then to have...
I guess they have to, like, work up to that.
Amazing.
I probably know.
You got to start from somewhere.
So many carrots.
Yeah.
They love carrots.
They love carrots. That's why they turn orange Yeah.
Spreading misinformation.
Stop, stop, stop.
None of that is real. Of that is real.
Well, part of that was real.
The carrots part wasn't real and about their coloring.
Anything that had to do with the carrots. Pure eyesight.
Right, but not for owls.
No.
Moving on.
So, as far as the sound, forget the hoot.
Forget it.
No hoots.
No hoots are given here.
They are screechers.
Oh, that makes sense, though, because Nyra comes in in the movie at one and she's like, and I was like, okay, yeah, it's actually kind of terrifying.
Okay.
It sounds like very raspy and like a distant scream of like someone like, either like about to do something really bad or about to die.
Okay. Like a lot of pain.
All right.
Well I guess we'll play that here.
That would give scream queens a run for their money.
No, they should actually play obsession.
A barn owl screen.
The barn owl. In the background of a horror movie and you wouldn't know the difference between a human.
That's fucking crazy.
No.
That's the scariest thing I've ever heard. Terrifying?
That was way scarier than the Ruples vulture.
Oh, it's really scary.
I think it's the scariest one we've heard so far.
Oh my god.
Well, and it's funny because, like, what you think of with owls is like, like, such a sweet noise.
No wonder they're omens of death.
If I heard that.
Another, like, fun fact about their sound for taxonomy, um, in 2024, there was a species split that wasn't just about DNA, but it was actually a distinctive flight call tied to mate attraction that new world barn owls give, and old world barn owls don't.
Oh.
So that is actually why they separated those 2 distinct subspecies is because of the flight call that they use to attract their mates.
Wow.
Okay.
And then for location, they are actually one of the most widespread owls.
They are found all the way from southern Canada to all the way down to Tierra del Fuego and the Galapagos in South America.
Yeah, that's crazy.
They do specifically the Andean, so the Andes Mountains, the Andean populations can range up to 13,000 feet in elevation just for like where they hang out, which is very high in elevation.
Pre varied, yeah.
Mile high is 5280.
Right.
So 15,000.
Oh, 13 that fuck.
Okay.
Very hot.
So way high.
Yeah, that's 13,000, but it's not a 14er.
No.
Just under.
But you might see them on your 14er on the way up.
You might.
If you don't know what that is, you should come to Colorado.
Yeah, look it up. Don't have time to explain that to you.
No, this isn't a mountain podcast. It never will be.
Sorry.
Sorry.
But they love the open country.
So they are big grassland bird.
They like deserts.
They like marshes, they like agricultural fields, hence barn owl.
They like ranch lands and they have increasingly been adopting like the outskirts of suburbs and cities.
So because I think they're losing their other habitat.
So they have adapted to be able to live in a lot of places.
They also show up in people's barns.
Or they're sheds, yeah.
A little tiny barn, one might say.
Their namesake runs true.
Yeah, this is actually a shed. Owl podcast.
And next up, we have sheds corner.
I'm going to talk to you about the difference between a shed and a garage.
And a garage and a barn.
All very different.
Yes.
And then we'll go out from there.
It'll be a five-part series, 3 hours each.
I hope you're ready.
As far as like migration or where they might go in the winter, they are largely a year-round resident.
So they don't really migrate very often.
Some individuals, especially the younger birds, push south in the fall from the northern edge of their range, but again, it's just not really a migratory bird.
They are typically looking for a place to land permanently.
I love that for them.
Nesting can actually happen in almost any month, depending on latitude and food supply.
So that's actually really unusual for North American birds, but they don't have like a specific breeding season necessarily.
They can they can nest at any time.
It just depends on their setup.
Okay, cool.
That's really cool actually.
Yeah.
And speaking of nesting and setups, they are monogamous, typically for life.
So pairs generally only seek a new mate if one of them dies.
There are like a couple documented situations of like divorce, as they call it, and then birds of the world.
Um, but...
Scientifically divorced.
Yeah.
And I think it was like maybe Ohio or something, but yeah, it's it's very rare.
It's almost exclusively they find a new mate if their partner has died.
Okay.
Their courtship is this like aerial chase display and then the male offers food gifts to the female.
Cute.
And then the actual mating is interesting.
I was reading about it on birds of the world, and they do like repeated chloacle kisses instead of like one and done.
Yeah.
They do repeat it, and it's actually pretty long.
It's like 10 to 20 seconds.
Which a lot of birds, it's like 3 to 5 seconds.
Right, and it's like over and over again, too.
Oh, interesting.
So I thought that was kind of interesting.
They're freaking honeymooning.
Yeah, they're like into it.
They're having a good time.
They're having multiple rounds.
Crazy.
Yes.
Stamina.
A burning stamina.
I love it.
And together for life.
Yeah.
Christian values.
Well, it's the church or steeple bird.
Yeah, and that's what I'm saying.
That's what I'm saying.
Church and steeple and until death do us part because death bird.
Not all Christian communities necessarily believe in doing it for a long time in a good times.
Here's what I'll say right now.
I could give a fuck less what Christian communities think about anything.
Yeah.
I say give her what she wants.
And if she wants a long time and a good time, then do it.
And if you're gay and there's no she present, you do whatever the fuck you want too.
That's not my business.
And it's not anybody else's business.
So the nest type and placement, they are cavity nesters, but in the loosest sense of the word.
So they will do cavities of a tree hollow, which would be like a pretty typical cavity that you would imagine, but they'll also do cliff ledges, crevices, caves, which is one of their nicknames.
They'll do a riverbank borough.
But they really love a human structure.
Okay.
Their actual preference is like a building.
Yeah, like a barn.
So, yeah, hence the name.
So barn lofts, church steeples, silos, haystacks, nest boxes, and even the backs of drive-in movie screens.
Oh.
Yeah.
So they've really adapted to the human environment that they are consistently surrounded by, and that's actually their preference.
So when we say cavity nesters in the loosest sense of the world.
It's like, it's much more man-made cavity than your typical cavity nesters that would be like a very small hole that is in a natural structure.
Fascinating.
Cool.
The female doesn't actually build a nest so much as curate a vibe.
So she shreds her own regurgitated pellets with her feet, and then works them into a cup shape.
So instead of like going out and collecting all these like materials, She's she's doing it all herself.
She's she's eating food and throwing up the pellets. And ripping them up and making it.
Yeah, honestly, that actually sounds eco-friendly.
It's very solar punk of her.
Very. Very solar punk.
Sites are frequently reused year after year.
So I feel like a lot of birds for safety.
They will put their nest in different spots every year. So that like, I don't know. To protect themselves from predators.
But if they find a spot that they like, they'll use the same spot year after year after year.
Sometimes resourceful, iconic queen behavior.
Exactly.
So eggs.
The clutch size can be 2 to 18 eggs.
Excuse the fuck me?
18.
18?
Like, that's the most documented?
You better stop cloakical kissing.
That's too many.
Like, that's a lot of kids.
Holy shit.
I don't know if part of it is like Civil War amount. The fuck?
It's like maybe that 1st year mortality, they're just like really nervous.
Well, that's what I'm saying.
Civil War kids, like.
But commonly, it's like 4 to 8 aches.
So that's not crazy, but 8 is still pretty hot.
I still feel like that's a lot.
I feel like raptors, because owls are raptors.
They don't typically have that many young.
No.
I feel like 4 is usually like the higher. 6 is like sometimes, but I feel like raptors are usually.. 8, though, is the average because even 8 feels like a lot.
Even 8 feels like a lot, though.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I mean, okay, I guess, but like, I don't know.
Damn.
Okay.
The color is like a dull white, but it's often stained by the material of the nest.
So, like, whatever might have been in the pellets that created the cup.
Um, there might be like some residue on the outside of the nest.
Sure.
Incubation is pretty long.
So 29 to 34 days.
That's just incubation.
So that's at least a month, basically.
Jesus, for 18.
How do you even incubate that many?
I know.
And then like, how giant is this cup to hold 18?
Put your wings over the whole thing?
Like you just circle around. Their body is pretty small.
Like how do they even incubate that much?
It seems like it's not going to go well anyway.
Okay.
The nestling period is roughly 50 to 55 days.
And they have one to 3 broods per year.
Jesus.
So they're they're driving.
They're just like making babies.
Fuck, man.
Okay.
Good.
I mean, good for them.
Good for them, but Jesus.
Yeah.
Yep.
Okay.
You're like stressed out right now.
I'm stressed by how many kids that is and how often they're having these kids.
Like, do they ever get a break?
I don't know.
Three times their life, you know?
How long to take care of them after?
Fuck.
Well, and they like are born blind for like...
That's what I'm saying. Like it's so it's not even like they're precocial.
Like, Jesus.
Okay.
Anyway.
Keep going, keep going.
I'm stressed.
So as far as diet that is mostly small mammals.
So they really love a rat, a mouse, a bowl, a lemon, a shrew.
Occasionally, bats, which we saw.
Yeah.
We saw in the buckups, they don't have...
So fuck them.
They don't have feelings.
Eat them.
Rabbits, and then sometimes small birds.
So starlings, meadow larks, things that are in their habitat.
By the way, random fun fact, I learned the other day that out of all the mammal like types that it exist, rodentia, so rodents are the most like common animals, like mammal species.
And then following shortly behind them is bats.
Okay.
Like there's more rodents and bats than any other types of mammals.
Because they just like produce so many young and like no, no, no, no, by species.
No, no.
Not by numbers, by species.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Which makes it way more interesting.
That is interesting.
Like the number of species in both of those categories takes up the majority of the mammalia, like thing, which is fascinating, isn't it?
There's like 14,000 bat species.
Oh my gosh.
And with, I think, Rodentia is like 26,000 or something like that that have been discovered.
Anyway, I thought that was really interesting and I just thought I would tell people that.
There's a lot of options for their now.
So probably never run out of options.
A lot of them, like, in numbers as well.
But I meant in species.
Yeah.
I love it.
During incubation, nesting pairs will cachet, like they'll store dozens of prey items at the nest to feed the chicks once they hatch.
So they they create a whole food store for once, once the nest, the nestings are actually producing the hatchlings.
Right, the outlets. Insane.
Hunting is by sound as much as sight.
So barn owls have the best demonstrated ability to locate prey by hearing alone.
Any animal ever tested.
What?
By hearing.
You can't even see their ears.
I think it's because of their facial disc.
Oh.
So their disc, like, creates the most.
It like captures sound waves.
I think so.
Also, they have like, we learned this at the Sandhill Crane Festival.
We did like an owl talk, but they talked about there's they have an asymmetrical ear structure.
So they did talk about this, but I forgot completely.
Yeah, so when you look at a human, their ears are typically like pretty symmetrical.
If you were to draw a line across someone's face.
Typically.
Ear to ear, it's going to be pretty, pretty straight line.
Not for an owl.
That's going to be a diagonal line because they are asymmetrical.
So they have specialized fringed wing feathers that eliminate the wishing sound of flight, giving them a near silent approach, which also creates no like background static that they're having to work through.
And if you listen, there's this video I found on Instagram of like, a couple different owls flying.
Oh, I've seen this where they have like a bunch of mics set up as they fly across just so that you can hear it and the owl is like silent.
Yes, I have seen that.
I have seen that.
You should link that in the source. Really cool.
It's really cool.
What the?
It might not just be owls.
It might be other pretty quiet birds too.
But either way, the barn owl is so, so, so silent because of the way that their wings are built and their feathers are designed.
And then, yeah, they have this incredible facial disk and asymmetrical ears that create the best demonstrated ability to locate prey by hearing alone.
Jesus.
And again, that's any animal ever tested.
So, like, maybe there's others that can hear. But they just haven't been like actually significantly studied.
Yeah, as far as we know.
Right. As of now.
Yeah.
So the classic proof of concept experiment here is Roger Payne's 1971 study.
So he raised a barn owl in a completely light sealed room.
So he, think like Project Hail Mary.
Oh yeah.
So like he double checked with like exposing and overdeveloping camera film to confirm that there was 0 light leakage.
That's maybe fucked up.
Maybe.
Okay, maybe.
I guess he was feeding them.
Right.
So he releases live deer mice into leaf litter on the floor, and the owl caught them in total darkness, using sound alone, no smell or body heat needed, and pain measured its accuracy by the talent imprints, it left in plasticine around a speaker playing rustling noises.
What the fuck?
So later work by a scientist named Kenoshi.
Clocked owls closing in on a sound source at roughly 3.6 to 4 meters per 2nd in the dark.
Speeding up if they can actually see the prey.
Jesus.
Crazy.
Crazy.
No, but that experiment by Roger Payne really reminded me of this.
I think it's like less detailed than the movie, but in the book, he goes into like really big studies to figure out this thing that he's studying.
So it's uh, and he does like no light exposure.
It's kind of cool.
But 1971.
That was a long time ago.
Insane.
As far as, like, for food.
The climate scarcity angle, which we've highlighted a lot with previous populations that we've discussed.
They are so tied to rodent populations.
Their numbers track prey availability closely.
Um, unfortunately, road denticide is a huge problem for them. Rodenticide.
So like pesticides for rodents.
Yes.
And then them eating so like rat spray, rat poison.
Yep.
And them eating the poisoned populations and dying.
So, in some ways, it could just be eliminating their food source, in other ways, it could be poisoning them adjacently.
Right.
So that's that's a bummer.
They are least concerned or low concern.
The population is broadly considered stable across the whole range, but there are documented regional declines, notably in parts of the Midwestern US, which I think, again, it's that secondary poisoning of a dentist that is still a problem in certain agricultural communities.
I mean, that makes a lot of sense because those are typically the areas where we see a lot of these grass fields being cultivated for other agricultural purposes or for development and the things that naturally live in the grasslands are often rodentia and therefore there are sprays being put out there to try to protect that or to try to keep the rodents out of whatever is being built in that space.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Americans and people in the world want to live in nature, but they don't want nature to live in them where they are.
And also not in them, probably.
That would be great as well.
Okay, that's wrong.
Yeah.
So the primary threats are secondary poisoning from rhodenticides, road mortality, though, is really high as well.
So they hunt low over roadside, like, ditches and verges because it's a very popular rodent hat, but tap, and unfortunately, barn aisles don't seem to register roads and vehicles as a hazard, the way that some species have learned too.
And so the road mentality numbers are actually really startling.
And two-year study along a 248 kilometer stretch of interstate 84 in southern Idaho found 812 dead barn owls.
Damn.
In one year on one highways?
2 years on one highway.
That's still a lot.
That's a lot.
That's still a lot.
812.
Fuck.
A lot.
Damn.
So they adjusted mortality estimates based on this study to up to roughly 6 hours.
Whoop, nope.
Six owls.
Six owls per kilometer per year.
Females and juveniles were killed disproportionately often.
So juveniles, probably because they're still learning to fly confidently.
And then females, I think, just might be more of the primary hunter for certain families.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking too.
Yeah.
Damn.
That's sad.
That would make me really sad if I hit an owl.
Yeah.
I would make me sad to hit any bird, but like these are just, oh, yeah.
And I don't want to hit any bird, period.
But I just, and also that seems so scary because it's at night on a dark highway.
Like, you would just pick, ah, ah.
Sometimes trying driving on those dark mountain roads is already terrifying because you're waiting for like a deer or an elk to jump out at any given point.
There's like no street lights.
So an owl, and it's like 75 miles an hour is the speed limit.
And you're like, that can't be right.
That can't be right.
Insane.
Yeah, insane.
It's too much.
So, there are some conservation tactics that are already in place, though.
So there's nest box programs.
That's one of the big success stories.
So there's a lot of communities that are installing boxes in barns and farm buildings, giving owls safe nesting sites, while giving farmers free chemical free rodent control. That's the thing.
Like, if you're trying to get rid of the rodents, Stop using rhodenticide. Create an environment where you get a natural rodent hunter.
Like how people have cats in their barns, like a barn cat that helps with the rodent problem.
This is even more effective.
So and people do the same thing for bats.
They create bat boxes to help with mosquitoes, which are in climate change going to become a much bigger problem because mosquitoes do spread more disease than I think any other animal on the planet.
I'm pretty sure mosquitoes is the number one.
So bat boxes, barn boxes.
Is that what they were called or did I make that up?
No, um, boxes and barns.
Yep.
Barn boxes. Box. Box.
Nest box.
Get your box out, Beatbox.
Get that box going, baby.
Um, but yeah, again, so it's this is combating 2 things.
It's combating habitat and like nesting loss and it's combating the reliance on rhodenticides that poison the owls secondarily.
So cool.
Also, poisoning your rodents is just like not a long-term gain.
Like you're just going to have to keep poisoning them.
Whereas if you create like a safe environment for it, it creates like a sustainable impact on the rodent population, um, and also like some rodents might adapt and then move to a different environment.
So it's just like it's a much, much more long-term solution than just like poisoning them.
Yeah, I think that's a really great callout.
Yeah.
And then specifically a more recent 2023 to 2024 study in Tanzania found that maize farms, so think corn, using owl nest boxes and perching poles had measurably less rodent damage than farms without them.
Wow.
It is a proven, effective nature, for nature, by nature, with nature.
Get into it.
Get into nature.
Please.
Ethically.
Please.
Please.
Please.
Please, please.
So before I jump into like some of the narrative and fun stuff and tying it back to our episode last week, any any burning questions you have about the barn owl?
No burning questions, but I did think that, like, it was interesting.
I was looking at all about birds and birds of the world while you were talking and I thought that I had no idea that there was like darker species of barn owl.
There's like a sooty one.
Yeah, and like an ashy-faced one.
Yeah, that they're trying to decide if that's a subspecies or if it's like a separate species altogether.
But I'm looking at pictures and it's literally like, so that white face disc that's so common is like brown instead.
And it just looks so crazy.
It looks really cool, but I would be probably so confused if I saw one because I would be like, is it a barn owl?
Like it's so.. Like sooty one?
Yeah. Literally like almost like a great gray owl.
Like, it doesn't...
It doesn't really look like a barn owl besides the size and like you can tell that it like structurally. It's built similarly.
But that's why I was like, I think metal beak might be one of those types.
Yeah, yeah, maybe he is instead of a, instead of like not being one at all.
I don't know, just fascinating.
Also really interesting because we went to that talk once that had something about how owls are really the only birds that have like true ears in the sense that like they have them separate.
Right.
And so you would assume that like a long eared owl might be one that has like the best hearing.
So to find out that the barn owl is is really fascinating.
But yeah, no questions.
I did find someone, actually, though, that I think I'm so excited. Person.
So I'm really excited.
I don't think you're gonna know them by name, but you'll recognize them once you look them up.
But yes, let's get into fun facts and our section where we pick celebrities and we'll take it from there and I'll tell you my pitch.
So the title genus has like some specific, like, Cleo is mentioning subspecies that they're trying to kind of just study more and determine, are they their own thing or are they just a subspecies of Taito?
But there's the barn, which has many versions.
So I've been focusing on the American barn owl, but there's like the Australian bar now. Like there's so many.
If you go and look at birds of the world.
It's an amazing amount of information.
But some of the most common ones are the barn owl, the grass owl, and the sooty owls.
So those are totally related to the gahool books and movie.
That's the title owls that they consider the pure ones, their whole supremacist ideology.
Um, and the Titanidae versus Strigidae split is actually like real.
There is like a whole subset of like Titanidae versus Trigaday. And like Trigaday is kind of what you would think of more with like a typical owl.
So like the hoot hoot and the bigger like rounder eyes with like the yellow versus the dark black. Interesting.
So it is actually like grounded in real owl family trees.
But they turned it into like a fictional white supremacy thing.
So, um, crazy.
So, as I mentioned earlier with the, like, flight coal, Like, call differentiation between Old World Barn Owl and New World Barn Owl.
And you said flight cult?
I was like, I don't remember talking about a flight cult.
What are we talking?
What flight cult?
That's the pure ones.
Yeah.
But in 2024, ornithologists did officially split the old worldwide barn owl into 3 separate species.
So there's the American Barnell that we've been focusing on today.
The eastern barn owl and the western barn owl.
Damn, okay.
So depending on which field guide is on your shelf, you may see this bird under one of those names.
So technically, the Sibley bird guide that we have that we've referenced many times.
From North America.
Yeah, it says Tito Alba, which is actually the Western Barn Owl.
Not tecto fricana.
Oh, that's fascinating.
So it's kind of interesting.
Huh.
The formal proposal leaned heavily on the made attraction fight call unique to the New World birds.
And so there were some genetic and size differences, but mostly it's that flight call.
Fascinating.
And American barn owls do run noticeably larger with their wing length specifically than their old world cousins.
Interesting.
Um, there is in 1964.
A genuinely bizarre hybridization record. At the St.
Louis Zoo, a captive male barn owl, paired up with a female striped owl, a completely different family of owl.
Strigaday.
And then he was titan today.
Okay.
So she laid 4 unusually round oversized eggs.
Two were fertile, though the embryos didn't survive past day 15.
So it's the only documented cross family owl hybridization records that was formally written up.
So that was in 1964.
But again, it was it was a zoo situation.
So it was like limited.
And I can't remember exactly what that's called, but there is a type of thing where, like, animals can technically produce young but not viable young, or there is another, like, there's a word for it where, like, 2 animals can produce young that is viable, but that young cannot have kids.
So like a liger or a mule.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
There you go. Which is fascinating.
So interesting.
I hope nobody further works on that project, but would be interesting to see what the hybrid looked like.
For pellets, American barn owls swallow prey whole and cough up a pellet about twice a day.
A scientist cheat sheet for exactly what the owl's been eating.
And also, I don't know.
I have a very vivid memory as a child of getting a barn, like a pellet and having to decay, like 1st dissection, baby's 1st dissection.
Yeah, same.
So, and I thought it was cool as fuck.
I did too.
I definitely thought it was poop at the time though.
Yeah.
Like, I think it was like...
The way they pitched it to us wasn't, at least from what I remember, clear that it was like hawked up like a hairball.
Right.
It was like, this comes out of them and I just assumed it was poop.
Yeah.
Well, because it, like, it's, it's a pellet shape.
So, like, it makes sense that our brains are just like poop.
Yeah, that's fascinating.
And then for folklore, Cleo mentioned this earlier, but they have barn owls specifically have one of the richest bad omen reputations in Western folklore.
So they are heavily associated with witchcraft, doom and death for centuries and centuries.
In England.
There was a period of time where a dead barn owl or one wing like ripped off the body, and then nailed to a barn door was used to ward off evil, quote unquote.
Hey, that's I'm like, I don't know.
Feels like you're kind of inviting evil by your actions.
I agree.
I agree.
I don't love that.
Um, and uh, Shakespeare actually references a barn owl and like the death and doom that is coming in Macbeth, which is one of his, like, death and doom heavy plays, um, and is credited with coining the term night owl for like someone who like stays up all night and like prefers the nighttime.
That makes sense.
And it's kind of a creep and this is killing people.
Oh.
That owls out there are like, um, well, I was just, I'm a night owl.
I'm just watching shows I'm not being tree.
Actually, just playing my video games. Just hanging out and I can't sleep.
My bad.
Jim insomnia, but thanks.
And you're a witch.
But yeah, it's I am a night owl.
Unfortunately, I'm a night owl who wants to be a morning person and so I just never want to sleep, I guess.
That makes sense.
You should get it in naps.
They're awesome.
I know.
The problem with naps is then I, it takes me even longer to fall asleep at night.
Well, that's the point.
You get to stay up longer at night, but you still sleep.
But then I want to get up and be protective.
Oh, yeah, the nap just makes up to make myself feel guilty for not accomplishing it. But it's like, it's like double sleeping.
You know, you sleep from like one AM to like 8 AM. And then you go back to bed at like 5 from like 5 to 7 and then you've got 9 hours of sleep.
Okay.
Okay.
I work on this.
Yeah. Do it all the time.
And you look at you.
And look at me.
I'm fine.
I'm perfectly fine.
Nothing wrong with me.
I'm not anxious ever.
I'm always good and full of energy.
Um, okay.
And the last thing I want to share is my own personal owl saga.
Oh, which is that I've been receiving gifts from my parents that are owl themed for 6 years.
Without them realizing that Hannah loves owls or birds.
Yeah.
The 1st gift I was given.
The 1st gift I was given was this beautiful professional photo.
I'm pretty sure of a saw wet owl, this little tiny owl, and it's in this beautiful handmade wooden frame.
And I was like, 0 my god.
Thank you.
It's because I've gotten back into bird watching.
And my mom was like, what?
You did what?
And what?
And I was like, oh, okay.
And then like at 3 AM one time, my dad sent me like an a video compilation of owls doing weird things.
And then they like would give me newspaper clippings of like owls in their local paper.
And then, yeah, this year, my birthday.
I got another bird.
You got gift, which was actually an owl gift.
And then even an owl themed card, which came with a music video.
And fun facts. And a poem about owls.
Yeah.
And the owl theme gifts.
Don't give a hoot what other people think.
The owl themed gift is like a tapestry throw blanket.
Yeah, it's gorgeous.
Quilted. Very cool.
It's kind of it's kind of a vibe.
It's, again, I totally, and it was like one of those things that you'd pass that, like, maybe you'd never buy for yourself when someone gifts it to you.
You're like, this is cool as hell.
Yeah.
It's very thoughtful and fun.
But at the same time, like, they don't realize how thoughtful it is.
So like, what kind of thoughtfulness is that?
It's a very subcategory.
I don't know. Don't really know how to describe it, but I still think it's nice.
Yeah.
And now I have tons of owl shit at my house. We love it.
I love it.
So, you know?
Shout out to owls.
Shout out to...
It wasn't a barn owl, a blanket.
They've yet to give you a barn owl, so maybe that's coming.
Next step.
Next steps for sure.
All right.
We've reached the time of our pop. Celebrity, doppelganger, or, like, pop culture adjacent.
Yeah, whatever.
Whoever we decide.
But you thought of someone.
So I'm curious.
I did.
You want to know mine first?
Yeah.
Okay, you're going to have to look this person up, so get your goo ready.
Okay.
His name is Nathan Stewart Jarrett.
Wow.
And I remembered him from so many 1st names as their home name.
It's 100% correct.
Oh my goodness.
He, I remember seeing him.
I never even saw this movie.
But I saw the preview for Candyman like years ago and I was just having this memory of him.
I was like, why do I recognize this?
And I was like, why do I, and he was also in Doctor Who.
Um, and I was like, why, who am I thinking of?
So I looked up Candyman and he came up and I was like 100%.
Like even the eye shape and like the way that like his nose is is kind of like the perfect shape for like the face disk and like the eyes of the barn owl.
Wow.
Yeah, I was like, by name you're not going to know who I'm talking about.
But if you look this person up, you'll see it and you'll immediately be like, yeah, that makes 100% sense.
So that is my, my plug for the, um, and I also think we talked about this a little bit off camera, but I do think that Joel Edgerton. Is a great candidate as well.
He's the voice of Metal Beak in the movie.
We just covered last week.
Yes.
And he has a very flat face and I would say almond slanted.
Absolutely.
Um, But this man, Nathan Stewart Jerrett is gorgeous.
Yeah.
And a good one.
I thought it was a good one. Was really proud of myself.
I was like, wow, I have a deep cut.
I never have deep cuts.
I don't know any celebrities except for like, how did you even think of it?
I don't know.
I was just like looking at it and I was like, there's someone I'm thinking of that looks just like this in the Candyman trailer.
And then I looked it up and that's exactly who I found and that was my weird recall.
So that's wild.
That's that.
And then Joel Egerton, those are my 2 plugs.
Who is yours?
Scarlett Johansson.
Wait, wait.
No, wait.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
I was like trying to look up heart-shaped face celebrities.
Uh-huh.
And she she kind of okay, but guys aren't quite as perfect as Nathan's.
Yes.
But they are still a little slanted and they are in almond shape.
Yes.
But her face looks so much like, well, and she's so pale.
Yes.
And then, like, with these, like, very strong jawlines and like, yeah.
Oh, fuck.
And she kind of has like a pretty flat, like, facial. She does.
She does.
And her cheekbones are a little like lower than you might typically expect.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Again, all of these things, like she is one of the most beautiful women.
Oh, yeah, no, this is not like a, this is like a comparison to, I think American Barnells are one of the most beautiful birds.
No, none of this is hate. Of this is hate at all.
This is like I was like, 0 my god.
It's Scarjo.
I actually I agree.
I agree.
I agree.
If we hybrided the 3 people. Talked about.
It would actually just make a bar now. Just be a Barnell, yeah.
But I do agree that she is like kind of a perfect fit, especially when she's got like her hair pulled back and you can really see her like face shape.
I feel like that is that's a good pull.
And her very good point.
And her like nose is a little bit like a cute little beak.
Like, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
I love that.
I completely agree.
Yeah.
I was like, 0 shit.
That's a barn owl.
Ooh.
I love it.
No arguments from me.
Wow. 10 out of 10.
But 10 out of 10 for Nathan, too.
But you'll have to decide between the three, I guess, that we pulled up, who you think is the most.
I mean, I think that Joel Egerton at face value is the quickest, like, yes.
Yeah, but then Nathan Stewart Johnson, Johnson, Nathan Stewart.
Jared, sorry.
Nathan Stewart Jarrett is like a little closer. And then Scarjo is like the female equivalent.
Yeah.
Fascinating.
I love it.
Wow, that was amazing.
Yeah.
I love barn owls.
I love them so much.
Fuck the Tyto pure ones.
Yeah, but I love a barn owl.
But we love them.
They're so beautiful.
And I love their scary, scary shriek.
Oh, man.
We'll have to play that again at the end just for fun.
Yeah.
It's so good And before we go, we'll say, stop doom scrolling and build a fucking barn box.
Nest box.
I'll get it right Get that box in there.
Yes.
Dooms going. Something with a box.
Look into natural ways that you can control bugs and pesticides because the chain of using rodent sides, insecticides, all of that stuff, weed killer, it all goes into the environment.
There is a long lasting chain of effects that comes with that.
And I could give a fuck less about your grass.
I could give a fuck less about your grass.
Who gives a fuck that you have a dandelion?
Like, they're fucking cute.
And actually get a bearded dragon because they eat dandelion.
Hell yeah.
You can just get...
Make some dandelion wine.
I don't know that real?
There's dandelion tea, for sure, too.
Dandelion wines.
All right.
Do that too.
Stop doom scrolling and get a bearded dragon, make a bird nest, box, get a bat box, and look into your local ways to like take care of the planet without using fucking poison.
Please.
Please.
We're already poisoning the planet in so many ways.
Please stop adding to it.
And here's the thing.
And this is something that I've really gotten on my soapbox about lately, but I'm gonna do it really quick.
You do actually have impact.
Your individual actions have impact.
Yes, there are huge companies who are making big decisions.
There are governments who are making big decisions about public lands and the things that are happening that we don't have a ton of control over.
But what you do every single day can make a difference.
And so don't let people fucking tell you that you're hopeless and you're helpless and there's nothing you can do so you might as well just do the worst thing because that's not the truth.
No.
You can do something about it and what you can do about it. Is build a fucking nest box.
You're not responsible for where we are, but you are responsible for where we continue to go.
Exactly.
And if we all put our minds to that.
Huge differences can be made.
Huge.
Because, yeah, it's like, it's, If we're all gonna just jump on the pure one train, then like, we're gonna end up in hell.
We're already getting real fucking close.
So just like do better. Do better.
Or keep doing what you're doing and help other people figure out how to do better.
If you have a neighbor who you're noticing is complaining about their rodents, talk about building a nest box together.
Talk about getting a Bat box.
Community.
And then you get to see these beautiful birds.
Yeah, and if you hear the screaming outside, it's not your neighbor child who is suddenly being kidnapped.
It's probably just a barn owl having a good old time.
And that I don't know how to help you with, but I think it'll be okay.
So, Until next time. Stay cool, bird boy.