Virtual Tour: Birds

Paleontology | Anthropology | Birds | Collections

Do you know what "prey" means? It is an animal that is captured by another animal for food. It seems cruel to kill an animal for food, but it's an important part of nature. If predators (the animals who capture the prey) weren't around, the prey populations wouldn't have anything keeping their numbers in check. In other words, the number of the prey animals would just keep growing and growing and growing until there wouldn't be any food or space for the prey to live on! On the other hand, predators can't eat all the prey. If they did, the predators wouldn't have anything left to eat and they'd starve. This leads to a balance between the numbers of predators and the numbers of prey in a given area.

On this page, we have birds of prey. They capture small animals, like fish and mice and snakes.

Owls

Some birds of prey are nocturnal, like owls. Owls have good vision straight ahead, but they don't have very good peripheral vision. This means they can see what they're looking at but they can't see out of the corner of their eye. This is okay, because they can turn their head to the sides much further than a human can! If you turn your head to the left, how far does it go? You can probably only turn your head to your shoulder. Owls can rotate their head past their wing and can almost see behind them!

Owls have very sharp talons to help catch their prey. If the owl is flying along with a mouse, the owl doesn't want to drop the mouse and not have dinner. The talons (kind of like very sharp long toenails) help the bird keep its dinner.

barn owl

Owls are also very very good at hearing things. This barn owl can catch mice in complete darkness just by listening to their squeaks!

 

 



Finally, owls can't digest everything they eat. So they make little pellets with bones, hard parts of insects, and anything else they can't eat and they regurgitate (spit) it out. Sometimes you can find a pellet and dissect it to find out what the owl has been eating.



great horn owl

This is a great horned owl. See how big his eyes are? This allows him to see much better at night. He's got more rods than cones. Rods and cones are cells in your eye that help you see. Rods are better at catching dim light and cones are better at catching color and detail. All owls are better than humans at seeing at night. Do you see the owl's hooked bill? That helps him tear into the animals that he's caught. Owls can't use knives and forks, so they have to use their beaks.



screech owl




This is a screech owl. It lives in deciduous woods, suburban areas, old orchards, and lake shores. They'll defend their nests, even to the point of dive-bombing people who pass too near at night! They'll freeze to blend in with the background when discovered during the day.

 

 



snowy owl

This snowy owl lives in open habitat such as dunes, marshes, tundra, and plains. It's very rarely seen in a tree. It likes to eat lemmings, rabbits, rats, and dead fish. Their exact location and number of eggs produced depends on how many lemmings there are for the owl to eat. The snowy owl is rarely sighted in Indiana. Look at the color of this bird, and think about its name. Where do you think it lives? Up north where there is lots of snow? You're right! This bird can blend in better against a white or grey background. Now go back and look at the color of the feathers of the great horned owl. Where do you think the great horned owl would fit in? If you think that it'd live in a forest, you'd be right. The different shades of brown let the bird blend in against trees and in the darkness.

 

owl feet

See the feet on this snowy owl? How do you think its feet help the bird when the bird is in the snow? Perhaps the feathers keep its feet warm. Can you think of other reasons the bird might have feathers on its feet?

 

barn owl 2

This barn owl lives on the edges of forests and in cities. It eats rodents, like mice and rats. It hunts in the dumps of large cities and likes to live in deserted buildings or hollow trees. Note the shape of its wings. This type of wing is common with all owls. It allows them to flap silently so it can swoop down and catch prey. The wings are very soft and suited for gliding.

 

Hawks

Hawks are also predators. However, unlike owls, they are active during the day. They have excellent sight and can see both ahead and to the sides at the same time! They have hooked bills and strong talons. Based on what you learned about the owls, can you think of why the hawks might need hooked bills and strong talons?

Unfortunately, hawks are often hunted by humans. Also, humans use pesticides which wash into streams and rivers. These pesticides build up in fish and when the hawks eat the fish, the hawks consume the pesticides. This can lead to thinner eggs and birds that become very sick.

This is a Rough-legged Hawk. It lives in tundra, open plans, marshes, and in agricultural areas. This hawk likes to perch at the very tip-tops of trees, on the very tiny twigs. The Rough-legged Hawk eats lemmings as does the snowy owl. Can you think of what might happen when two animals eat the same kind of food? Do you think that maybe they'd compete with each other? Do you think that the birds might change their behavior to avoid this competition? Think about when hawks hunt and when owls hunt. Do you think competition is so strong?

This Marsh Hawk is a harrier which means that it will fly close to the ground when it's hunting to surprise its prey. It's thought to have excellent hearing in addition to the excellent vision that all hawks have. It lives in marshes and open grasslands.

The Cooper's Hawk lives in forests. It has become more rare because of pesticides. The females are larger than the males - can you think of a reason why? Maybe because the females take care of the young, they want to look bigger to scare off predators. See the long tail? The long tail helps the hawk maneuver when it's chasing its prey.

This bird is known by it's migrations. It's a Broad-Winged Hawk and migrating flocks can contain several hundred birds. It lives in deciduous woodland and eats snakes, mice, frogs, and insects.