The Tawny Owl by Hadrian’s Wall
BY AWAKE! CORRESPONDENT IN BRITAIN
A THIN trail of mist hung at treetop level as a crescendo of delightful melody broke the stillness of the dawn. Summer migrants had just arrived in the north of England to add their songs to those of the resident blackbirds and thrushes.
I followed a peat-stained stream wending its way between banks studded with primroses and wood violets toward the ancestral home of the tawny owl by Hadrian’s Wall.a I knew that about a mile farther upstream, she would be close to the trunk of an old elm tree, keeping watch over her four young chicks. They would be snug and safe in the hollow stump of a dead ash tree.
The owl—what a marvel of creation! Its eyesight at night is a hundred times more acute than that of humans. Even in the diffused light from the moon, an owl is able to capture its prey. Human eyes have cells called cones that separate colors and cells called rods that gather light, but the owl’s eyes are packed tight with rods that contain a chemical known as visual purple. This converts the faintest glimmer of light into a chemical signal that gives the bird a sight impression, whereas humans see just the presence of light.
Owls cannot rotate their eyes in their sockets as most creatures can. Each eye is fixed like a car headlight. To compensate, the owl—thanks to an amazingly flexible neck—is able to rotate its head at least 270 degrees to see in all directions!
It has been said that from its perch 50 feet [15 m] up in a tree, an owl is capable of not only seeing a mouse but also hearing it rustling in the grass. Its amazing ability to hear comes from the design of its ears. If you look at the face of an owl, you will see that it is ringed by stiff curved feathers that collect and reflect sound waves to the ears, bouncing the sound onto the largest eardrums in the avian world. The ears are set one slightly higher than the other, allowing the owl to pinpoint sound accurately.
Once the owl has located its prey—whether by sight or sound—it will swoop silently. The owl’s body is covered with feathers so soft that all sound is muffled. Even the wing feathers have downy edges to eliminate whir when in flight. On a dark night, countryfolk have at times been frightened by the glowing form of an owl swooping low along the road. Unknown to them the owl can glow with a phosphorescence rubbed onto its feathers from luminescent fungi that grow on the rotting wood of its nest.
I continued to move upstream and soon came upon the gnarled old tree stump. The warmth of the morning had brought one of the young birds to the hollow’s entrance to bask in the slanting rays of the sun as they filtered through the leafy canopy above. There he sat, blinking his eyes in the breaking sunlight—a delightful sight!
Hidden somewhere in the branches above, the old tawny owl was perched with her mate, surveying all before her through half-closed eyes. I knew she would carefully watch over her young until they could fend for themselves with the instinctive wisdom given them by their Grand Creator.
[Footnotes]
a Under the orders of Roman Emperor Hadrian, between 120 and 130 C.E., Hadrian’s Wall was constructed as a defense against the unsubdued Caledonian tribes to the north of England. It runs just over 73 miles [117 km] from the Solway firth in the west of England to the mouth of the River Tyne on the east coast.
[Picture Credit Line on page 15]
Courtesy of English Heritage