Alice the Great Horned Owl is a permanently injured owl who works at the Houston Nature Center in Houston, MN and lives with her handler, Karla Bloem. Rusty and Iris are Great Horned Owls that are both blind in their right eyes and cannot live in the wild. Rusty and Iris are breeding in captivity as part of Karla's vocal study on Great Horned Owls. All together they have led to the creation of an International Owl Center in Houston, MN and an International Festival of Owls.
Saturday, April 06, 2013
Gular Fluttering 8:00 am 4-6-13
Owls don't have sweat glands so to cool off from the heat or stress, they pant. This is called "gular fluttering." Their gular sac (kind of a throat pouch) is pumped in and out, moving air in and out and cooling them. A really hot owl will also slick down it's feathers (so they don't hold so much warm air), and a really, really hot owl will also droop its wings to get air movement in the wingpits for additional cooling.
The gular sac is also expanded during hooting, when the bill is shut.
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Which sound is the owlet? I heard a woodpecker drumming and a sandhill crane calling. Maybe they were both the owlet. He/she looks like a miniature Big Bird. Too cute.
ReplyDeleteYou might like looking at the Wildlife Center of Virginia critter cam. They have a GHO owl in rehab and keep a camera on it in its enclosure. It is being introduced to a surrogate owl but so far he can just look at the adult owl through glass. The owlet is fed by someone wearing an owl mask.
Good question! The owls don't make any noise when they pan/gular flutter.
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