Hibou! That’s French for owl, my absolute favourite animal of all time! I literally walk around my classroom each day telling people how much I love owls! Some of my friends call me crazy, but I’m just expressing my love and passion for such an incredible animal. Therefore, it’s only normal that I do this weeks blogging challenge post about owls! I’ve attached a video below as a way to show you just how amazing these bird are!

For this weekly task, we needed to research the science behind a certain object, animal or thing. We would then need to embed a video to show further information or to support our investigations and lastly, create a two truths and a lie quiz about our researched topic. As shown in my intro and the video, this post will be about owls. But I’ll specifically focus on how they fly so silently. After all, that’s a special talent unique to owls only.

Have you ever seen an owl fly? Can you recall what it sounded like? If you recall the experience correctly, you probably didn’t hear any sound besides perhaps a minor screech and feel a soft gust of wind. Owls are the only birds that are able to fly soundlessly due to both their wing shape and the method used to fly. Because they are a bird of prey, meaning they hunt animals such as mice, being absolutely quiet while in flight highly benefits the owl as it very rarely scare its prey away through sound. The people in the interview show a very clear experiment on testing different types of birds to see how the owl differs while in flight. Hopefully after watching, even if you only watched the beginning, it’ll give you a good visual on what I’m about to say.

An owl, although fairly small and cute is a fearless animal and a master at hunting prey. One of the reasons for the owl’s soundless wings is the shape and size proportion to its body. It very quietly flies through the air in order to be able to sneak up on its food. Unlike many birds, an owl has very large long wings for its size enabling it to have more lift in one stroke. You see, each time a bird beats it’s wings or flaps them, it creates sound waves which initially is the sound we hear from other birds while in flight. Less sound waves means less sound heard! The owls large wings create one large smooth beat which allows the owl to remain in the air longer and have to flap its wings less. Below, you see a pigeon and an owl side by side. Look at the size difference in the wings! No wonder an owl can glide for longer!

An owl truly is such an amazing animal. It has so many unique features which allows it to survive in the wild. I hope that after reading my post, you now realize just how incredible an owl is and now understand why I love them so much. And perhaps, you may have even found a new favourite animal too! Just as a small test on what you learned today (oh gosh I’m starting to sound like a teacher😂) I’ve created a short two truths and a lie about owls while in flight!